To Argentina, Without Love
by SimoneSez
Summary: The A-Team is hired to go to South America to track down a former Nazi officer.  When they arrive, they discover that another "team" is after the same target... but for them, it's not business, it's personal.  Crossover with Hogan's Heroes.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I do not own any of the characters from _The A-Team _or _Hogan's Heroes._

**JANUARY, 1980**

Dawn in Los Angeles used to be pink. It had been a long time ago, but Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith could still remember what it had looked like in the days before the cloak of brown smog had settled in, stuck to everything it touched and never left. The van that he and two of his colleagues were sitting in was parked at the edge of an industrial complex in the eastern part of the city. Not much in the way of scenic vistas here. Dry-cleaner's signs that weren't missing any letters were about the most picturesque sight you could hope for in this neighborhood. What it _did_ have going for it was the fact that the locals kept to themselves. That was worth something to a team of fugitives who had been on the run from the United States Army for almost ten years.

Hannibal swiveled in the 'shotgun' seat and nudged the ankle of the young man dozing in the seat behind him with the toe of his boot. "Face. Wake up."

The handsome man frowned and pulled his foot back. "It can't be time yet…" Much as he loved the expensive Rolex wristwatch he wore, he couldn't even bring himself to glance at it at the moment. It was an obscenely early hour.

"Trust me. Now rise and shine. We've got a lot to go over."

Templeton "Faceman" Peck did _not_ 'rise and shine'. But he did manage to get his eyes open part of the way and accept the paper cup of coffee Hannibal passed to him. "Thanks… and keep 'em coming."

Behind the wheel, the imposing figure of B.A. Baracus preferred to fortify himself with plain milk. He had polished off two single-serving cartons already, and four more pints were lined up on the dashboard. That would last him for a while. Maybe. "What are we doin' out here at this time of day, Hannibal?"

"Sorry about the hour; I've got a set call for eight o'clock."

"Something big?"

"A walk-on… and carry-off; my character gets murdered in an alleyway in the first scene of a new TV drama series they just started filming. It's about an insurance inspector who solves crimes."

"Captivating," Face nodded. "And I think it's a re-tread of one they had back in the early 70's… guy had a funny name nobody could pronounce." The coffee was hot and strong. If the caffeine wasn't enough to keep him awake, the scalding of his lips and tongue would do the job just as well. "Where did you get this stuff; the back door of a drain-cleaner factory?"

Hannibal passed him a manila folder. "See what you think of this."

Good thing breakfast hadn't come along with the coffee. The faded sepia eight-by-ten close-up photograph of a grim, stocky man wearing a black uniform with swastika emblem would be enough to put Peck off his food for at least the rest of the day. The subject's eyes, nose and mouth all combined to give him the affect of a large rat wearing a black cap with a death's-head insignia. There was no mistaking that look of cold contempt in those eyes. Even though the photo was faded with age, Face suspected that the personality might _not_ be.

"Gee, what a handsome fellow… please tell me we get to meet him."

"You may be in luck. This is Major Wolfgang Hochstetter, formerly of the Gestapo. Escaped Nazi Germany at the very end of the war, last seen in Berlin in May 1945, at the old headquarters, burning evidence. Disappeared shortly afterwards, believed to have made his way to South America along with some of the other members of Adolf Hitler's honor roll. Pretty nasty fellow from reports."

"Didn't they already rake in all the big names years ago? I can't believe there are any still on the loose that anybody cares about."

"Not a first-string player, but a consistent one. Did a lot of rotten things to a lot of people who didn't deserve it. Not one to do his own dirty work all the time, either, but real good at finding others to do it for him when he was busy elsewhere kicking puppies. Never had to to pay for any of it, though, since he skipped the country before he could be brought to justice, probably via the postwar network set up to help slime like him escape prosecution."

"I just saw a movie about that on the late show… it was called Odessa, wasn't it?"

"There's some controversy about whether or not Odessa as such actually existed, but that's about the size of it. Whatever they called themselves, there was a lot of help available to the right people, for the right price, to get out of Germany before things got way too hot. Most of them skipped to South America… Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, and so on. A lot of them went to ground and managed to stay there for decades. Ever since the war ended they've been hunted down and prosecuted, one at a time."

"So you're about to tell us this guy's number finally came up."

Hannibal handed him another photograph. This one was in color, taken from a distance of maybe fifty feet, showing a man who resembled the faded close-up walking up a flight of stairs with his head turned part of the way away from the camera. "The scoop is that this is the ex-major; he surfaced in Argentina a few weeks ago and he's currently going by the name of Erich Stahl."

"That been confirmed?" B.A. asked.

"The man who'd like to hire us to go down there and pick him up is sure enough to put up his life savings for the job."

"Based on this?" Face set the photo down. "I'd say your would-be client is a little soft in the head. You can't tell from that photo if that's the same guy or not. It's blurry, it's from a distance, and they were taken more than thirty years apart."

"_Our _client saw a lot of this guy during the war, way more than he wanted to. Got leaned on, and often. He's a hundred percent sure this is the same man."

_Our _client. So Hannibal had already decided to take the job. That was bad enough… but why had he had to wake them _up _to tell them that? "So do we get to sit down with this client, this…"

"Johann Schmidt."

Face rolled his eyes. "Of course."

"He's currently in Palm Springs. Refuses to come to Los Angeles."

"I don't like it," Face said.

"Okay, I'll bite… why not?"

"Because this Johann Schmidt… or whoever he is… first of all, that's about the most ridiculous name I've ever heard."

"Really? And what's wrong with John Smith? I've always kind of liked it."

"_Nothing_, if that's the guy's _real _name… which it _isn't, _and I'd bet my gold Diner's Club card on it. And why won't he come here to L.A. to talk to us in person if he's already in Palm Springs?"

"He says he has his reasons. In this case I'm willing to make an exception. He's an old man, he's involved with hunting down some very dangerous people; he has fears for his safety. Besides, I've always wanted to hunt down a Nazi or two; haven't you?"

"Sounds okay to me," B.A. nodded. "I _hate_ Nazis. Only one thing. I ain't flyin'."

"Well, that goes without saying," Hannibal nodded calmly. "But we'll need to spring Murdock from the V.A. anyway. We need a plane; we'll have to fly the guy back to L.A. after we grab him."

Baracus gave him a wary stare. He was afraid he knew where this was going. It had gone this way before; many, _many _times before. "Hannibal…"

"B.A., the rest of us are going to be on a slow boat to Argentina… that guy's been on the loose over thirty years; he doesn't know he's been made and he's not going anywhere in the next week or two, so there's no rush. You and Face and I will take the scenic route down and let Murdock handle the hardware. Then, after it's all said and done, the three of us get back on the cruise ship and enjoy our trip home while Murdock flies our mark back to the States."

That did make the big man's normally stern face melt into a bit of a smile. "A cruise ship…?"

"That's right… with on-board entertainment, swimming pools…"

"Hannibal, what's a man with forty pounds of gold around his neck going to want with a swimming pool?" Face asked. "It would take a crane with a winch to get him off the bottom."

"I said 'entertainment', didn't I? What's more entertaining than sitting around a pool watching a flock of beautiful women swim and sun themselves all day long?"

That created a pleasant mental image. "You do have a point there."

"Of course I do. So go get Murdock and we'll start putting this plan into operation."

"It hurts to ask… well, it's not so much that it hurts to _ask_, but more that I know I'm going to be in agony after I hear the answer…"

"How much are we getting paid for this job?"

Face nodded, wincing slightly. "That's it… that's the one; I feel the pain starting already."

"Because you immediately assume that a retiree who's interested in Nazi hunting doesn't have much of a bankroll."

"Oh, and is that an unfair assumption?"

"Maybe, in some cases… but not in the case of Mr. Schmidt. He's a retired bookkeeper who's been saving his _pfennigs_ for this ever since the war ended. I haven't told him, but we're going strictly for expenses this time. If he gets us down there and back, we'll sweep up his least favorite Nazi for nothing as a public service while we're in the neighborhood. Can't be more fair than that."

"How is that fair to _us_?"

"Cheer up, Face. Think of it as a down payment towards that debt to society Colonel Decker keeps insisting we owe." Hannibal looked again at the photograph Schmidt had sent to him. "It'd be worth it to get this guy in a nice cozy jail cell somewhere. You must know something about the Gestapo. They make Decker look like a fluffy pink mascot for a diaper service."

Face nodded. "Sure. I know enough about them to know that they're probably not easily loaded into an airplane against their will to be flown out of a neutral country and delivered to a war crimes court for prosecution and sentencing."

"Face, the guy's in his seventies, and he's about five-foot-six. How hard can it be for the four of us to put a toad like that where we want him, and keep him there until Murdock lands the plane in L.A.?"

"The problem is that we don't _know _until we _try_. And then all kinds of bad things can start to happen."

"Yeah." Hannibal stuck a cigar in his mouth and touched a match to the tip. "Exciting, isn't it? Really gets the blood pumping."

"Just as long as that pumping blood stays _inside _our bodies… that's really all I care about." Face sighed. "I mean, as long we're not getting paid. _Again_."

oo 0 oo

At Ministro Pistarini International Airport in Buenos Aires, the weather was warm, humid and sunny. That wasn't news here, not in January. But for the passengers disembarking from Flight 2793 from Chicago's O'Hare Airport, it was a far cry from the heavy winter weather they had left behind.

One of them, a slim, sandy-haired man in his mid-sixties, emerged from the jetway with his carry-on bag over his shoulder and looked around at the cluster of people waiting to meet passengers. He recognized no one.

Was he the first to arrive? He shouldn't be, unless there had been a delay. Still, that could happen. Five different international flights, three from the States, one from England, one from France… there was always the chance of a delay. But he had hoped there would be someone here to meet him. His Spanish was limited to a few phrases he'd learned watching Speedy Gonzalez cartoons with his kids when they were little, and that had been a long time ago. He didn't think much of his chances of being able to get a taxi from here to the hotel unless he had a little help. Like finding the taxi stand. Speedy Gonzales had never needed to hail a cab.

"_Andrew_!"

The voice very close behind him startled him, and he turned around quickly. Then he broke into a grin when he saw who it was. "Oh, hi!"

"I've been callin' and callin'. You forgot to turn it on, didn't you?" The gray-haired man who'd come up behind him, a little shorter and a little heavier than he, flicked at the wire that attached the hearing aid in his ear to the amplifier in the pocket of his sportcoat. "It won't work like that, you know."

"_What_?" Then Andrew remembered. "Oh… oh yeah… I turned it off." He dialed up the volume on the control unit and nodded when the ambient noise of the arrivals area began to hum in his ear. "That's better… I'd seen the movie before, just wanted to try and get some sleep."

"Well, let me look at you… Andrew Carter, a sight for sore eyes. How long has it been, mate?" Now the strong British accent was coming through to his ear loud and clear.

"_Too_ long," Andrew said, sharing a quick hug and a few claps on the back with the Englishman. "We keep saying we're gonna do better about it, but we never do, do we?"

"Well, Muncie's not exactly 'round the corner from London, Andrew. But you're right… after this, we _will _do better. _All _of us; we'll get together once a year or somethin' to celebrate. How's Mary Jane?"

"Oh, she's great. First soprano in the church choir now."

"Really?" he grinned. "Ever heard her sing, or do you shut that thing off in church as well?"

"Sometimes I sleep there, too…" Andrew admitted with a grin.

"I don't blame you a bit. Haven't seen the inside of a church meself in quite some time. The vicar prefers it that way… he's not insured against the lightnin' that would strike if _I_ ever crossed the threshold." Peter Newkirk glanced at the clock above the international arrivals board. "Well… Louis, Kinch and Colonel Hogan should all be here by tonight. Let's go have a drink while we wait, shall we?"


	2. Chapter 2

In the compound known as the Los Angeles Veterans' Hospital, the patient known as Captain H.M. Murdock sat by himself under a tree, reading a worn paperback book, his right hand moving gently back and forth about six inches above the ground. If there had been a small dog there, his hand would have been petting it. There was no dog.

Unfortunately, Murdock saw one anyway.

A sudden harsh whisper from the cover of a nearby rhododendron startled him. "Murdock!"

He looked up. But, seeing nothing, he returned to his book and his vaporous dog.

The voice came again, a little louder this time. "_Murdock_!"

He looked around again. He still saw no one, but before he could return to his book, the rhododendron shuddered slightly.

Murdock reached out a curious hand and touched a branch. His hand was slapped, and he pulled back sharply.

"Will you watch your hands?" The voice belonged to Face, then, no question about it – especially when he appeared out of the bush, plucking burrs from his sportcoat. "Oscar de la Renta meets Euell Gibbons..."

Murdock burst out laughing, and Face shushed him immediately. "You want to keep it down? In case you've forgotten, they're not supposed to know I'm here!"

"Man, you better be careful. Some crazy vegetarian's gonna stick you in the Cuisinart and make a high-protein drink outta you."

"Very funny. Now, if you're finished, would you care to accompany me to the van?"

Murdock scrunched his face up in a disinterested frown. "The _van_...?"

"It's gonna take us to the _airport_... but don't tell B.A."

That did it, that was the magic word... Murdock lit up like a game show. "Well, all _right_, why didn't you say so in the first place? I'll get Billy's leash."

"Uh... Murdock, you can't bring Billy this time."

"Well, I can't just go off and leave him all on his own, Face... he's been havin' problems with rejection and abandonment issues lately, it's all comin' out in group therapy, and if I went and left him now he'd lose all that ground he's gained."

"We're going to South America, Murdock... it's, um..." Face thought fast; fortunately it was one of his specialty areas. "They won't let Billy into the country without six months of quarantine. Now, you wouldn't want to do that to the poor little fella, would you? All alone, in a cage at the airport... all by himself..."

Murdock's liquid brown eyes became remarkably like those of a sad, lonely dog when he heard Face put it that way. His lower lip quivered. "Well..."

Face gave him a supportive clap on the back. "Attaboy, Murdock, I knew you'd put Billy's welfare first. One of the nurses or the other patients will feed him and walk him for you while you're gone. Let's move out."

"He's feeling rejected already, Face, I can tell. Look." Murdock thrust his wrist towards Peck to display the Mickey Mouse watch on his arm. "See what time it is?"

"Murdock, it's _broken, _remember?The hands just spin around."

Murdock tipped his wrist forward so both of Mickey's seriously loose hands pointed upwards at the twelve. "It's time for Billy's lunch. I can't leave _now_."

"Billy, _sit. Stay_." Face felt ridiculous talking to an empty spot on the ground next to Murdock's feet, but he'd learned long ago that it was the only way to get these hospital "vacations" accomplished quickly and quietly. "Good dog. Murdock'll bring you back a squeaky toy from Argentina."

"_Two _squeaky toys," Murdock promised as Face took hold of his jacket and started to pull. "Don't you go diggin' in the garden again... and don't forget to wear your collar when you go outside... and don't talk to strangers... and... "

"B.A..." Face murmured under his breath. "You owe me a _big _one this time..."

Murdock tipped his left palm downward; both of Mickey's hands obeyed gravity and swiveled to the three on the watch dial. "Quarter past three, we're runnin' late… gotta go!"

oo 0 oo

Colonel Robert Hogan didn't have to look very hard to find his party after he exited the boarding lounge. A lot of years had gone by, but some things would never change. He heard Newkirk's boisterous voice first, followed quickly by Carter's slightly over-loud laughter, and then he knew exactly in which direction to turn his head. At the same small marble-topped cafe table sat Louis LeBeau, and also James Kinchloe, who had never been thought of by any of them as anything other than "Kinch".

He smiled. The boys looked good. That didn't surprise him, really. Oh, a few things had changed... they were all in the late stages of losing their original hair color, particularly LeBeau who now had a full head of nearly-white hair, and wore small wire-rimmed spectacles. Kinch still had the build of the athlete he had once been, and what was popularly known as salt-and-pepper hair... the salt was winning, and there was a thin spot at the back that hadn't been there the last time they'd seen one another... and how long had _that _been? Newkirk's hair was still thick, now iron-gray, and he'd put on a few pounds... the level of domesticity he had consented to settle into apparently agreed with him. Amazingly, Carter's hair was nearly the same sandy shade Hogan remembered from all those years ago in Germany, and it looked like he hadn't added an ounce to his lanky Midwestern frame since 1945. Andrew Carter: Stalag 13's answer to Peter Pan.

Hogan knew _he'd_ changed. His own hair was all-over silver-gray these days; it had started at his temples almost the very day he'd hit forty and spread from there. At least he'd been able to hang onto it. He had never thought the "Colonel Klink" look would be flattering on him... heck, it hadn't even been flattering on Klink. He wore glasses to read, stubbornly resisted the idea of bifocals, and although he would never admit it there were one or two teeth in his mouth that were synthetic enamel, a partial bridge that had allowed him to keep what had occasionally been described as a movie-star smile. At any rate, he didn't think he looked bad for almost sixty-eight... and there were a few attractive ladies out there who apparently agreed with that assessment. The fellows were a few years younger than he was, of course. They still looked like a lively bunch, up for just about anything. That was good.

Because this just might be the most knuckle-headed plan in the history of the world.

He approached the table while still trying to decide what to say, but Carter saw him first and rose quickly to his feet, caught somewhere between the old-fashioned "attention" that had grown out of long habit and a wide, welcoming grin. "At ease, Carter," Hogan smiled. "I think we're a little past that, don't you?"

The three other men also rose to greet him, not so much by rote as that they were genuinely glad to see him. "How was your flight, Colonel?" Kinch inquired as they shook hands warmly.

"I'm not your superior officer anymore, Kinch... you can drop the 'Colonel'."

"For _what_?" the tall black man grinned. "I don't think I could ever get used to calling you 'Rob' any more than you could just suddenly start calling me 'Jim' after all these years. Unless you're willing to settle for 'hey, you', I'd like to keep the 'Colonel' if it's all the same with you."

Hogan shrugged. "Suit yourself. But let's not stand on ceremony." LeBeau's turn. "Louis, you haven't changed a bit... have you got a portrait in your attic doing your aging for you?"

"I'm French," he smiled, giving Hogan a European-style kiss on each cheek. "It's one of the benefits. But just a few short miles on the other side of the Channel, the _English_, on the other hand..." He shook his head slowly. "_Oh, là là_... _comment ça veut dire en anglais_, 'moth-eaten'?"

"Stop right there, and arrettay-voo while you're about it," Newkirk warned. "I look as good as anyone in my condition can be expected to look... that bein' sixty-two and a bit over-fond of visits to the pub." There was just one cigarette smoldering in the ashtray on the table; Hogan would have bet any amount of money it was Newkirk's. Kinch and Carter had been occasional smokers back in Germany, but Newkirk was the one who had always seemed to be trying to make a full-time job out of it. Obviously the American Surgeon General's report hadn't cramped his style. He was just as ornery as ever. If he hadn't been, he wouldn't be Newkirk... and Hogan would have been severely disappointed.

Carter couldn't resist a stiff salute for old times' sake; Hogan returned it feeling a little awkward. "Really, Carter, at-ease is fine... I don't even think I remember how all of that stuff is supposed to work."

"Oh... okay... I'll try." He extended his hand and Hogan took it. "You look great, sir... if you don't mind me saying so."

"I'd mind if you _didn't _say so." He found there was a fifth chair already waiting for him; they all took their seats. "So... we all just got here today so nobody's been able to do any reconnaissance on their own."

"You told us to plan it that way," LeBeau reminded him. "Because of security concerns. For _ourselves_."

A waitress set a tall, cold glass of beer in front of him without him having to ask... obviously the boys had made it a point to have him covered before he even arrived. Same as ever. "Always thinking," he nodded in approval. "Just like I taught you."

"As far as we know, Hochstetter is still living in the mansion on the Via Tranquilla, still going by the name Erich Stahl, and still a sitting duck waiting for us to grab him."

"We've come a long way to do it."

"And waited a bloody long time," Newkirk put in. "The quicker we get that rat in a sack and tie it shut, the better."

"Still a very dangerous rat," Hogan reminded him. "The worst thing we could do is underestimate Hochstetter. He's not alone in this, you can bank on that. He's got aides, weapons, money. He didn't get here in the first place by holding up a cardboard sign that said "South America or Bust". He's got a nice cushy life down here and he's not gonna go quietly. Don't forget that."

"You're not thinking of backing out on this, are you Colonel?" Kinch frowned.

"It's occurred to me a time or two. So if anybody wants out... well, now's the time to say so. And _if_ that happens I don't want any judgment passed, no grousing, not so much as a sideways glance. You've all got families who don't want anything to happen to you. If this doesn't sound like such a good idea anymore now that we're actually sitting here in Argentina, speak up. We can spend some time on the beach, look at girls, play cards, drink too much, and go home with killer hangovers. Nothing wrong with that."

"Beggin' your pardon, sir, but there _is _somethin' wrong with that," Newkirk spoke up. "We owe Hochstetter for a lot. He's gotten away with _all _of it 'til now."

LeBeau nodded. "_Oui_. Remember Neptune and Firefly? And even that guard at the camp he had shot in cold blood? One of his own men, a _Boche_, but even _he _didn't deserve to die like that."

"We could be here all day just trying to list all the names," Kinch added. "And those would be just the ones we _know _about."

"And the ones who lived to _speak_ of what happened to them, who survived Gestapo torture... there are two of us right here at this table."

Nobody remembered that better than Hogan, who had always silently counted in his mind, even more carefully than their former barracks guard Sergeant Schultz, how many men were under their rickety roof every night. How many he had sent out on missions, how many had returned on time. Go out with four, come back with four... but sometimes it was three. Or worse. Nothing the Gestapo had ever done to him had been worse than the feeling he got in his gut when a man that he had sent out on a mission failed to return to camp as expected. LeBeau had been strung up by his thumbs by the time they'd been able to get to Hammelburg to rescue him. Newkirk had been worked over in Berlin in the final days of the war... his escape had been even narrower. Either or both of them, members of his command but also his friends, could have easily ended up on the long list of "missing, presumed dead", their bodies never to be found, dispatched to mass graves somewhere in Germany, instead of sitting at this table alive and well. Hochstetter was owed something for that. And they were the logical ones to see that he got paid.

"You all feel that way?" He got four firm nods, along with a "_cértainement_", a "you bet", a "bloody got _that _right", and a "when do we start?". "Okay, I guess the ayes have it. And I'll make it unanimous." He lifted his glass and the other four men raised theirs simultaneously. "To our final operation, then... so let's make it a good one."

oo 0 oo

It was a busy day for international arrivals. Not all of them, however, were coming in the "front door". At what remained of a small, antiquated airfield north of the city of Buenos Aires, later that same evening and under cover of darkness, a C-47 cargo plane manufactured in approximately the same year the runway had last been paved bounced down the uneven asphalt strip, skidded over the grass growing out of the thousands of cracks in the pavement with a squeal of rusty brakes and the smell of hot rubber, and finally came to a stop. The only witnesses to the landing, a shabby-looking flock of scrawny goats grazing on the low scrub-brush, scattered in panic. There would be no airport bar waiting to serve _these_ arriving passengers.

That was all right; one of them was unconscious anyway.

Hannibal took charge once the side door was open. "Okay, easy does it." With himself and Face on the uphill side of the ramp, and Murdock below, they eased the flat cargo dolly with the sprawled, supine form of B.A. Baracus on board down the loading ramp and onto the pavement. "Good. Hold it."

"Y'know, if we flipped him over, he'd make a groovy throw rug," Murdock suggested. "Somethin' for in front of the fireplace on those cold winter nights."

Face pressed the crook of his elbow to his forehead to blot off some of the sweat he was marinating in. "_Cold _winter nights? This is January, isn't it?"

"Welcome to the southern hemisphere," Hannibal said. "Down here you can roast your Christmas chestnuts on the pavement; you don't need an open fire like the song claims."

Murdock kicked at the edge of the trolley with one high-topped sneaker. "Colonel, how we gonna get this big hunk of real, real mad to the hotel?"

Hannibal turned to his lieutenant. "Face?"

"There should be a jeep waiting for us over by the terminal… or, over by what _used _to be the terminal, back when Wilbur and Orville were still running the place."

"There'd better be. I don't intend to push this cart all the way to the city."

B.A. gave a low groan, and there was a rattle of gold chains when he turned his head slightly. That always upped Face's blood pressure. He knew what came next… the waking-up part. After that usually came the grabbing-the-closest-throat-and-squeezing-it part. B.A. did not appreciate being drugged, shanghaied, spirited off to a foreign country and waking up with only a general idea what part of the globe the rest of the team had brought him to this time, but no matter how many times he'd made that clear, and how many knuckleprints he'd left on the crisp collars of Peck's carefully-pressed designer shirts, they kept doing it. In Face's opinion, that was the textbook definition of "death wish".

"I'll go check on the jeep." Face sprinted down the runway towards the low off-white cinderblock building barely visible in the distance. Let Hannibal and Murdock take the big man's wrath this time. Hannibal had it made anyway; B.A. had never yet and _would _never lay a hand on his C.O. Hannibal's collars never got torn off. Not even B.A. had ever been _that _angry.

"This'll do to stash the plane." Hannibal lit up a cigar. "Looks like nobody ever comes out here. We should have this guy Hochstetter in the bag in two, maybe three days tops. Where'd you get this crate anyway, Murdock?"

"Picked it up at an air show in Santa Monica. Come late in the afternoon all the pretty birds started flyin' away, and so did this one… 'cept the rest of 'em went east towards Phoenix, and this one peeled off and went south to Argentina, _muchacho, muy bien_."

"I've heard of economy class, but never an entire economy _plane._ The only two real seats in there are in the cockpit. Face spent the last twenty hours sitting on the equivalent of a park bench. B.A. was probably more comfortable on the floor."

Murdock patted the metal hull as if he thought its feelings might be hurt by the criticism. "Ain't nothin' wrong with this bird that a can of paint couldn't fix. I was thinkin' on the way down, maybe we oughta add a little nose art, y'know, like they had durin' the war. How 'bout this?" Murdock struck a pose somewhere between Marilyn Monroe and Daffy Duck, one arm behind his head and lips puckered, displaying his profile in front of the area normally used for such portraiture. "What do you think, Colonel?"

"I don't think Betty Boop has anything to worry about."

"I could add heels."

A low growl from the ground interrupted them. "I better not be in Argentina…" B.A.'s throaty rasp reached their ears. "I _know _nobody's gonna tell me I'm in _Argentina_…"

Murdock switched into game-show-host mode and whipped out an imaginary microphone. "That's _two _wrong answers in a row, I'm afraid, but we have some lovely parting gifts… Vanna, please tell this big ugly mudsucker what he's won today on _I Bet His Life!_" B.A. made a clumsy lunge for the pilot's knees, but Murdock dodged the enormous hands and ran in the direction Peck had gone minutes earlier. "I'm gonna go help Face, Hannibal!"

The sergeant's vision was starting to clear. Lucky for Murdock he wasn't up to a full-out run quite yet… but there would always be later. He squinted up at the battered plane. "You put me in _that _thing? You crazy, Hannibal?"

"It got us here, didn't it?"

"You said a cruise ship! I was there when you told us Murdock was the only one gonna fly!"

Hannibal grinned around the cigar clenched in his teeth. "I lied."


	3. Chapter 3

Standing on the sixth-floor balcony of the luxury hotel suite, Hogan kept the long telephoto lens of the 35mm camera steady and trained on the curved cobblestone driveway of the manor house across the street. "Okay... I can see the front door and they just brought a big car around. Stand by."

"Get an even better view with binoculars," Newkirk, at his elbow, suggested.

"Sure. But if they happen to look up here and spot a camera they'll think it's just some dizzy tourist taking a few photos for the family album. If they spot binoculars, I don't think they're gonna believe we just flew in from Teaneck New Jersey."

"You see any guards, Colonel?" Kinch's question.

"I don't, but that doesn't mean they aren't there." He swept the camera from side to side slightly to expand his purview. "Hold it... there's one at the gate, about fifty feet from the door."

"Armed?"

"Is there any other kind?"

Carter checked the page of data their informant had provided them with. "What we got from Bruno says that Hochstetter goes to the old port area a couple times a week. Got a favorite restaurant down there; about the only place he regularly leaves the house to visit. It's called..." He squinted at the page. "_That_ can't be right."

"What?"

"This says..." He shook his head. "No... this is... it's got to do with... well..." He swallowed hard. "Um... ladies' stuff..."

"Give me that." Newkirk snagged the paper out of his hand, scanned it and rolled his eyes. "That says _Brasserie_, you twit. That's a French restaurant. Even _I _know that; what's wrong with you?"

"If there's a Frenchman willing to cook for that _Boche _I would like to have a word with him," said LeBeau.

"Take it easy, Louis, nobody has any idea who Hochstetter really is," Kinch reminded him. "If he manages to mind his manners and he's a halfway decent tipper, he's welcome anywhere."

"We can always hope he chokes on his pâté," Newkirk suggested.

"After we came all this way? Forget it. That's what I call a wasted trip." Hogan cut himself off when he noticed some activity down by the front entrance. "There's someone coming out." He touched the focus ring of the lens almost imperceptibly to bring his field of vision into crystal clarity, as he watched someone exit the front door and start towards the long black car that waited in the driveway just a short distance away. "Come on, come _on_..."

It took him a few seconds to adjust his perception. Thirty-plus years had changed the ex-Nazi too. He walked with less of the headlong-dash he had been known for back in Germany, bent forward and eyes always sweeping the immediate area looking for anyone who looked like he needed to be arrested and interrogated to fill a slow afternoon. He held a cane in his right hand, which he appeared to be using at least minimally for balance and support, not just as an accessory. Still moved at a pretty good clip, though. His hair, what remained of it, was snow white. He had obviously enjoyed more than a few good French meals over the decades and he was a little stockier than he had been in his youth. In fact, there wasn't much about him that harkened back to the way he had used to look in Germany at all.

But the eyes. Those would never change. When he looked up to speak to the man who was holding the car door open for him, Hogan got a good look, and then he was absolutely sure. Those were hard eyes, and he'd never seen any others like them in his life.

"Bingo... that's him all right."

He clicked off a couple of photos and then passed the camera to Kinch, who gave a low whistle as soon as he had the man in close focus. "No question about it. That's Hochstetter."

"So he's down there and we're up here," Newkirk nodded. "Somethin' about that strikes me as less than handy."

"We give him twenty minutes to get to the restaurant, then we go over there ourselves... stage a diversion for the bodyguard and the driver, grab him on the way out."

"Just like that."

"Well, there are always a few details to be ironed out... but yeah, basically just like that."

"I always wondered, sir... did your pilot trainin' specify that you had to do _all_ your flyin' by the seat of your pants?" Newkirk smiled at Hogan when he turned his head to make eye contact. "Can't get me for insubordination anymore."

"If we don't get our chance today, we can try again. One thing we're _not _gonna do is any of that B-movie 'follow that car' stuff. That went out with soda fountains and dime novels."

oo 0 oo

Hannibal pointed at the long black limo that was just pulling out of the circular driveway across the street. "Okay, B.A., follow that car."

The big man's shoulders slumped in the driver's seat. "Aw, man... do I _have _to?"

"You don't like the transportation I arranged, _you _can scam the wheels next time!" It was at least the fourth or fifth time Face had said that over the past twelve hours since the team's arrival, and they were just as tired of hearing it as he was of saying it.

"Shut up, Face! You messed up! I don't wanta hear any of your lame excuses!"

"_You _don't want to hear any excuses? Since when are _you _my commanding officer? Hannibal just told you to follow that car; you gonna do it or not?"

B.A. had a choice, and he made it... later on he'd be able to take more time to explain to Face, using his hands which often spoke more eloquently than his words, just what exactly _was _wrong with this jeep he'd procured for them sight-unseen. But Face was right about one thing... he'd just been given a direct order and he knew he'd better follow it or else. He set his teeth, turned the key, and shifted into gear.

The pink jeep with the surrey fringe fluttering from the edges of the beige canvas top pulled into traffic, immediately putting a couple of other cars between themselves and the limousine for a buffer.

"B.A.'s right, Face," Hannibal directed toward the back seat. "This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever had to ride in... and I've been in a lot of movies with budgets that jingle."

"With the electronics _and _cattlemen's conventions in town, believe me, every rental car in eastern Argentina is spoken for. We were lucky to get this rig."

"'Lucky' isn't the word I'd use first."

"This ain't so bad," Murdock put in, propping his dusty sneakers up on the back of the driver's seat. "Pink is just red with a whole lotta white in it, is all. I kinda like it; gives us a nice light, cheery feelin' for once. Hey, maybe I'll paint our plane to match before we head on back to the states."

"This is a resort area. _All_ the hotels have them." Face hadn't given up trying to convince everyone, including himself, that the situation wasn't that bad. He did wish that Murdock would get off his side, though. That would make it easier to defend his position. "These things are all over town, taking people back and forth to the airport, to restaurants, theaters... they're like yellow cabs in New York. You just _think _we stand out."

Hannibal took a look at the variety of compact cars surrounding them on the four-lane boulevard. No... he _knew _they stood out. "Well, there is _one _bright spot. Nobody in his right mind would ever expect four armed commandos to be riding around town in something that looks like it was designed for an oversized Barbie doll."

B.A. would have been happy to crawl underneath the dashboard if there had been room for him under there. "Aw, _man..._"

oo 0 oo

Newkirk had been right. _La Brasserie Française _had nothing to do with women's underwear.

"Okay, okay," Carter nodded as the five of them stood across the street watching the front entrance. "I was wrong. I admit it. You happy now?"

"I'll be ecstatic if we can pull this off," Newkirk replied.

If? There was that element of doubt again, Hogan thought. Oh, Newkirk was good at that... always had been. His was the voice that had often been known to speak up loudly to pull a plan apart at the seams, express reservations, or just simply state "we don't know what we're doing". The _really _annoying thing is that oftentimes he'd been right. Newkirk tended to balance things out that way, and it wasn't always a bad thing to force his commanding officer to think twice and make sure all their ducks were indeed in a row before they made their move.

But it was never fun while it was happening.

Hochstetter was seated at a table far from the window, and rather inconveniently also far from the kitchen door. That wouldn't make things any easier. Still, if they went in through the kitchen there was a good chance that they could surround him without his knowledge. He was alone in the restaurant; his driver and the other man who had accompanied him stood in front of the black limousine talking and smoking... well, he hadn't changed on that score either; those were the hired help and he didn't fraternize with the lower orders. That might be his downfall this time. Alone, he had a much greater chance of being overpowered.

"If we can find a way to get him out the back, through the kitchen..."

"Pull the fire alarm and block the front entrance?" Kinch suggested.

"You read my mind. Okay, Kinch, you head around the side... _carefully_..."

"You don't have to tell me _that_," Kinch half-joked. "It hasn't been _that _long."

"See what you can find in the way of an alarm system. If it's tied into city services, see if that element can be disconnected... that's all we need in the middle of a kidnapping; half the police and fire equipment in Buenos Aires lined up watching as we run down the block carrying a screaming Kraut. LeBeau?"

"_Oui_?" LeBeau stood ready at his elbow. He looked nervous, though... it had to be ninety degrees in the shade on that street, but he was rubbing his hands together as if he felt cold.

"You all right, Louis?"

"_Oui, _of course I'm all right." His palms were sweating... a little... but he didn't feel that he had to admit that.

"See if you can get in the back way... talk it up with the staff, schmooze 'em a little in French, tell them you're looking for a job or something. Be ready."

LeBeau looked a bit less than enthusiastic. "You mean I have to be a French cook again? That's not the _only_ thing I can do."

"We know that, Louis. It's just... well, that used to work pretty often and I think we could use it again now. Why mess with success?"

"I _do_ have other talents," he insisted.

"Name one," Newkirk prodded.

"I happen to speak several languages."

"Give me a break..."

"No, wait, that's a thought," Hogan nodded. "Here we are in a Spanish-speaking country... might come in handy. Let's hear something in Spanish."

"_No hablo espanol muy bien," _LeBeau fired off without missing a beat.

"That's great... what does it mean?"

The Frenchman chafed noticeably. "'I don't speak Spanish very well...'"

Newkirk nodded. "Truer words were never spoken."

LeBeau bristled. "You think you can do better, _rosbif_?"

"Are you kidding?" Kinch asked. "Newkirk probably needed an interpreter to make it through Customs at Kennedy Airport. He's still working on English."

"All right, break it up," Hogan interjected. "Louis, we need you to be French today... nothing personal. Newkirk and Carter, go in the front door and take a table... _away _from Hochstetter; we don't know how well he remembers you. I'll wait out front to hear back from Kinch on the alarm system, and then if we've got a shot I'll let you know what comes next." There was one more thing: he checked his sidearm, and the other four did likewise. Bruno had come through for them in that department as well. "Don't anybody get too overeager. If we _can_ finish it today, so much the better. If we do get our hands on him, we get him to Bruno and he'll take it from there; he has contacts in the network who know what to do."

"It's kind of disappointing not to be able to see the whole thing through ourselves," Carter said.

"You ever tried getting on an airplane with a Nazi in your suitcase? Takes forever to get through Customs, and the duty taxes are unbelievable. No; there's no way we can do this without Bruno. But we'll still be able to say _we're_ the ones who swept Hochstetter up and tossed him in the trash... and what's even better than that, _he'll _know it was us."

Kinch and LeBeau headed, separately, towards the rear of the building to carry out their part of Hogan's plan. Carter and Newkirk gave them enough time to get out of sight before going in the front door. It was a small, intimate sort of place, not a four-star, slick tourist destination with fake South American décor that would have 'made in Taiwan' printed on it somewhere if you took the time to look for it. This was the type of place that the locals frequented, where regulars had their favorite tables and places at the bar. It was early in the day, and the place was still pretty quiet. The only other occupied table was a group of three; a silver-haired older man sitting with two younger ones, one of whom had dressed for a lunch in a nice restaurant and one who wore a plaid long-sleeved shirt over a faded t-shirt and had a dark blue baseball cap stuffed in the back pocket of his khakis. Americans, by the look of them, Newkirk guessed. Hopefully they knew how to duck. Their quiet lunch might get exciting very quickly.

"Looks like only the two exits..." he asided quietly to Carter.

"_What_?"

"I _said_, I'm very glad of the opportunity to commit suicide with you." Newkirk grabbed for Carter's pocket, pulled out the amplifier for his hearing aid and turned it up all the way. "Blimey, Andrew, I can't go hollerin' everything at you; this is espionage, not a football match! Half the trick is makin' sure the other side don't hear what we're sayin'!"

"Sorry..."

They _both _would be, very shortly, if anything like _that _happened again. Thank goodness Hochstetter was as far away as he was, then. When the waiter approached, Newkirk took the lead. "Hello there, _buenas dias _and all that... my friend and I would like a table for two, please."

"Certainly, gentlemen. Right this way." The waiter led them towards a table in the back, near the kitchen door. Well, that was nice of him... just exactly where they wanted to be, and far enough away from that party of three to be able to talk without attracting their attention... well, if Carter would only keep his volume turned up.

For all his insistence on concentration, Newkirk let himself be distracted momentarily by the tall, very attractive cocktail waitress who crossed their path on her way back behind the bar. "_There's_ a sight they didn't mention in the guide books," he mused.

Carter recognized a way to regain the upper hand when he saw it. "What about Jenny?" he asked with a certain amount of smugness.

"What _about_ her?"

"I don't think she'd appreciate the funny way you're looking at that waitress."

"There ain't nothin' funny about it... and for your information, Jenny wouldn't mind."

"Oh really?"

"Not put up against the fact that she thinks I'm in Glasgow, at any rate. _That's _likely to light her fuse when she finds out about it."

"You didn't tell her where you were _goin_'?" Andrew gasped in shock.

Newkirk smiled and shrugged. "Keeps our relationship excitin'."

Back on the sidewalk, Hogan did his best to look completely disinterested in his surroundings. Not easy. It had been a long time since they'd done anything like this, a _very _long time, and there were a lot of variables. Fortunately, it was at least _starting _well: very soon his former sergeant was back at his side... and smiling.

"Looks like it was installed by a junior high schooler moonlighting from shop class," Kinch reported. "No tie-in to city services, just a simple circuit."

"You got all the tools you need?"

"Sure, I just have to decide if I'd rather use a penny or a safety pin. Either will short it out and set the alarm off."

Hogan smiled. "That's the best news I've had all year. Okay, we'll give it five minutes... that'll give me time to step inside and let Newkirk and Carter know what's going on. Their job will be to grab Hochstetter and get him to the kitchen, and LeBeau can help them get him to the alley from there. Then you and I meet up with them and we get him to the car and get outta here before his pet thugs have time to wonder why he's not coming out the front door. Carter brought a couple of smoke bombs for atmosphere."

"Okay, I'm on it."

"Exactly five minutes. See you around back."

It was a simple matter to slip in the front door, stop by Newkirk and Carter's table, and quietly fill them in. They would toss a smoke bomb over to the front entrance to make it look impassable. That way Hochstetter would be more inclined to follow their helpful suggestions as they assisted him towards the rear doors that led through the kitchen. In the confusion it was a safe bet that he wouldn't take the time to get a good enough look at them to realize he was being set up and call for his reinforcements. But they would have to move fast.

Hannibal frowned as he watched the two older men giving their drink order to the maitre d'. "I was hoping we could pull this off without any witnesses."

"_I _was hoping for a decent house wine," Face said as he scanned the _carte des vins_. "I don't see anything here that's worth the prices. You come to an agricultural area, you at least expect a decent _vin ordinaire_. The area around Mendoza is loaded with up-and-coming wineries, but more than half this stock isn't even Argentinean. They probably export all the good stuff to New York."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Lieutenant. Next time we'll try to get assigned to a target who has better taste in local wines." He glanced at his watch. "B.A. should have had time to get around the back door by now."

Murdock double-checked the time with Mickey Mouse. Both white-gloved hands were on the 12. Until he turned his wrist... then they both dropped down to point towards the six. "My, how time flies..."

Face set the list down. "Might as well make our move; there's nothing here worth hanging around for."

Hannibal was about to tell him that he preferred not to select his moment by Peck's level of boredom with the wine list when suddenly all bets were off: the fire alarm began to peal. "_Damn _it!"

Murdock did a quick visual check all around them. "I don't even smell any smoke, Hannibal."

"Doesn't matter; if we don't move now we won't get another chance. Face, Murdock, get on Hochstetter and get him out the front door." A sudden thick plume of whitish smoke rapidly began to fill the dining area. "Where did _that _come from?" It didn't smell like smoke from a fire, though; natural smoke had an acrid odor of burning material and creosote. This had a faint chemical aroma to it and was almost immediately thick enough to be difficult to see through, not a characteristic of a natural fire. A smoke bomb? Who the hell would be setting off a smoke bomb in a French restaurant, and why the hell did they have to pick _today_?

Newkirk and Carter hadn't expected Hochstetter to go along with them easily, but they _really _hadn't expected two of the Americans from the other table to grab the major's _other _arm and start pulling the other way. "This way, sir!" Newkirk told him. "Through the kitchen!"

"The _fire's _in the kitchen!" Face countered. "Don't go that way, it's too dangerous!"

"There's no _fire,_" Carter began. "It's only a smoke b..."

When Newkirk had to off-balance himself long enough to kick Carter in the ankle, Murdock and Face began to really win the tug of war. Hannibal could hardly see what was going on, but he could see enough to realize his men were getting a serious argument from those two old-timers... well, he'd misjudged the situation, then; obviously they were two extra body guards who had followed Hochstetter inside. Clever indeed; they sure didn't _look _like bodyguards, and they'd managed to fool him. He pulled his .45 from his pocket. It was time for their coffee break, whether they liked it or not.

"Let go of me!" Finally Hochstetter himself had begun to weigh in on the fact that he was being pulled like a wishbone in two opposite directions. "Release me!" He struck out with his cane, not appearing to care too much exactly what he was managing to hit.

"Only trying to help you, sir," Face insisted, still pulling towards the front door. "Right this way... it's for your safety, sir..."

"And _I'm _tellin' you we go out the _back_!" Newkirk countered. He had regained his hold on Hochstetter's right arm and was back in the game when all of a sudden, to his right, he heard Carter give a startled yelp and then there was nobody standing next to him anymore. "Andrew!" he called into the blinding smoke. "Andrew, where are you? Are you all right?" _No_ answer was all the answer he needed; biting back a choice curse word he released Hochstetter's arm and stumbled in the direction he thought Carter must have gone. "Andrew, you'd better bloody well answer me!"

Next thing Newkirk knew, something very hard and very heavy dropped down on the back of his head, and then all the lights went out.


	4. Chapter 4

Hogan waited in the back alley. Then the commotion inside the restaurant started as expected, but nobody came out. He could hear yelling coming from the dining room. Hochstetter's voice, still loud enough to penetrate concrete after all these years, was the loudest, and he could hear Newkirk, and there were a couple of voices he didn't recognize. Seconds ticked away, maddeningly, and still no one came out the back... not Newkirk, not Carter, not LeBeau; not one single man he'd sent _in_ there was coming _out_. He had one idea left... he ran inside to find out what was going on.

Hogan cut through the empty kitchen and ran to the swinging door that led to the dining room. The room was full of smoke, but the front door was open now... how had _that _happened? The one place Hochstetter was _not _supposed to go was the _front door_; that had been the whole point of the smoke bomb! The open door was starting to allow the smoke to clear, and he could see well enough to realize that the two goons from the limousine had their boss by the elbows and were hustling him outside to safety. "What in the..."

A hard hand came down on his shoulder, spun him around fast and shoved him against the wall, and Hogan found himself face to face with a silver-haired man who jammed a .45 underneath his chin with one hand and removed his own gun from his pocket with the other. "Who the hell are you?" the man demanded. "And you better have a _real_ good answer."

"I'm with the health department; someone reported a giant two-legged cockroach was having lunch here today."

"Funny." The barrel of the handgun pressed a little more deeply into the soft flesh underneath his jawbone. "Try again; maybe I'll laugh next time."

The ear-splitting alarm was suddenly silenced, and then Face and Murdock appeared in the doorway of the dining room, guns drawn. "It's no good, Colonel," Face said. "Hochstetter's gone; they took him in the limo."

The young man had said "colonel", and for a moment Hogan had assumed he'd meant _him_. He couldn't turn his head, but he could move his eyes, and he was still scanning the area looking for his men... no sign of _any_ of them, anywhere. "Look... I don't know who you are..."

"That makes _two _of us," the man holding the gun at his throat informed him.

"I want to know what happened to my men."

"Those two in the dining room?" Face asked. He shrugged. "Beats me. I lost 'em in the smoke."

"I'm not fooling around!"

"Neither are _we, _pal," Hannibal assured him. "Those guys just fouled up a very important operation, and that doesn't make us happy."

"This was _our _operation, until _you _fouled it up!"

Whose side was this guy on? Those two old-timers who hadn't looked like bodyguards... was it possible that they _weren't_, and that he'd been right the first time? Still, they had to be more than a couple of tourists looking for a quaint place to have lunch, judging by what he'd removed from their pockets when he'd taken them out of action. With his free hand, Hannibal pulled the two 9-millimeter automatics out of his jacket pocket and placed them on the work surface that was strewn with chopped vegetables in the wake of the terrified chef's departure.

Hogan's mouth went dry. Newkirk and Carter. "So help me, whoever you are, I'll take you apart if..."

"You're on the wrong end of the gun to be making threats like that." Hannibal nodded to Murdock, then to the walk-in freezer. "Let 'em out... if they make a wrong move, this guy will be real, _real_ sorry."

As soon as Murdock unlatched the heavy door, Carter and Newkirk stumbled out of the freezer somewhat the worse for wear; their short-sleeved sport shirts had definitely not been designed for sub-zero temperatures and they were both shaking with cold. "What h...h...h...happened...?" Carter managed to ask.

"Don't ask _me_; I w...w...was in there _with_ you, remember...?" Newkirk massaged the back of his aching head. "Blimey…"

Hogan still had Hannibal's gun under his chin, but he managed to relax a little bit in spite of it. Stan and Ollie... alive and kicking, thank God. "Uh, fellas... can I have your attention over here for a minute please?"

Any further complaints about the cold were quickly forgotten. "Hey, let go of him!" Carter demanded.

"What you guys seem to keep missing is that we don't take orders from people we don't know." But Hannibal backed off a little bit on the pressure under Hogan's chin. He was starting to get the idea that this bunch wasn't any real threat to them, over and above being some foul-ups who'd just blown their operation. "Is this it? Any more personnel with you?"

Hogan knew he was at a distinct disadvantage, but he also realized that this was one of those times when he just had to go ahead and admit it, in the hopes that things would get better eventually. "LeBeau! Kinch!" he called. "Come on out... _carefully, _unless you want to see this guy rearrange my bridgework."

Kinch appeared in the back doorway from the alley, assessed the situation and very slowly crouched to set his gun down on the ground, then he stood up just as gradually and lifted both hands in the air. "You're learning," Hannibal nodded in approval. "So where's that other man?"

"LeBeau!" Hogan called again.

A new voice, a hard and gruff one, spoke up from the dining room doorway. "This yours?" it demanded.

Hogan had never seen anything like it in his life. The husky black man had biceps as big around as an average man's thigh, he was wearing a tiger-print tank top over fatigue pants, his hair consisted of one wide strip down the middle of his head that stood straight up and two narrower ones on the sides just above his ears, he had a full beard, and he wore so many gold chains it was impossible to see his neck. Long, colorful feathered earrings dangled from both earlobes.

And LeBeau dangled from his right fist. The big man had him by a large handful of the back of his shirt, and although he was struggling valiantly there was no way he could free himself. His feet weren't even touching the floor.

"All right…" Hannibal began, barely able to keep a rein on his temper. "It seems we are at a mutual disadvantage, gentlemen, and we're getting nowhere fast… how about telling us who you are?"

"You first," Hogan deferred.

"You think this is funny, pal?"

"No, I _don't_. I just saw our operation go bust because _you_, whoever you are, got in the way. I don't think that's funny at all!" It looked like the armed man in the khaki jacket thought they all had all day. He wasn't budging. "All right, my name's Robert Hogan… colonel, United States Army Air Force, retired."

Well... that was enough for Hannibal to finally lower his gun, at any rate. U.S. Army, right; but an MP this guy definitely was _not. _He was way over _that _hill. "Hogan… Robert Hogan… why does that sound familiar?"

"I don't know and I don't care! Now who are _you_?"

Might as well. "Lieutenant Colonel John Smith… United States Army, you might say on a leave of absence. It's a long story."

"I'll bet." Hogan risked a slow, careful point of his index finger in the direction of the dining room. "You know that guy that was out there, the real ugly one? That's our Kraut. We'd appreciate it if you'd back off and we're not going to take 'no' for an answer."

"Then I've got some bad news for you, mister… hands off; we were paid to come down here and pick up that same piece of scum. Our client in Palm Springs has his heart set on that particular make and model."

"Tough luck!"

"So you just go around picking up Nazis? What have you got, a collection or something? _We_ happen to be _pros_."

"What makes you think we _aren't_?"

"Well, then, I gotta hand it to you, Hogan, those are really great disguises. You actually look like a bunch of honest-to-God old men." He holstered his sidearm. "We need to talk."

It wasn't so much that they needed to talk, Hogan had decided. It was that this guy Smith needed to start _listening_.

oo 0 oo

The sidewalk cafe across the street from the hotel was neutral ground. But 'neutral' was not the same thing as 'friendly'. Introductions were in order, definitely. Handshaking and other social pleasantries, not so much.

"Lieutenant Templeton Peck, United States Army," Face told them. "On hiatus, you might say."

Smith indicated the young man in the flight jacket to his right. "Our pilot, Captain H.M. Murdock." Murdock gave a slight nod of acknowledgment but, for once, didn't appear inclined to take the opportunity to engage in any flights of fancy. "And our ordinance man is Sergeant B.A. Baracus. Collectively, we're known as the A-Team."

B.A. didn't say hello. He didn't say anything. He just sat there and glared at each member of Hogan's unit in turn. The guy looked like the entire jewelry counter at the Muncie Woolworth's had tipped over on top of him, Carter thought to himself.

Well, that meant it was his turn, Hogan figured. "James Kinchloe is a communications and electronics specialist. Andrew Carter's demolition and explosives." An elbow in the side from LeBeau suddenly reminded Andrew to turn his hearing aid back up; he'd dialed it back when the fire alarm had gone off and it had again slipped his mind to re-set it. "Peter Newkirk is an expert safe-cracker, forger and pickpocket. And Louis LeBeau…"

Louis prayed that the next thing out of the colonel's mouth wouldn't have anything to do with cooking… they were trying to sound impressive here, perhaps overly so, and nothing about his _crêpes Suzette_ would be likely to impress Smith and this crew… particularly _that _one, the big man who had held him like a freshly-caught trout, the embarrassment of which was still all too fresh in his memory.

"LeBeau's our linguist… speaks several languages fluently." Well, that was quite true… Louis' native French and fluent English were both excellent, and his German was still pretty good too. He noticed that Hogan chose to gloss over the fact that the local Spanish was not one of his areas of expertise, though. Just as well.

Smith appeared anything _but _impressed. "As luck would have it, I happen to have brought my _own _safe-cracker, forger and pickpocket, and that's Lieutenant Peck. So it looks like your Mr. Newkirk will be warming the bench along with the rest of you."

"Not bloody likely," Newkirk muttered. Peck needed a haircut. And that big bloke with all the gold chains needed _another _haircut… his barber had missed half of it on the first try.

"I've got it," Hannibal said. "Colonel Robert Hogan. It was a Luft Stalag in western Germany during the war… you operated an escape center for captured airmen and defectors. And ran sabotage on the side."

Hogan nodded. "Yeah, that's us. Now you understand where we're coming from."

"No… I understand where you've _been_. I _don't _know why you're here now, unless you've got some kind of suicide pact with your squad."

"Look, we didn't just wander out of a rest home!" Hogan snapped. "We're a specialty unit and we know what we're doing! The fact is that _we _saw Hochstetter first, you know. About thirty-five years ago. That to me says _I'm _the one who gets to tell _you _what to do."

"Nice try." Hannibal was nothing except perfectly calm and collected. Hogan disliked that in an adversary... and although Smith might be as American as apple pie, he was still their adversary. "Is that all you got? 'Finders keepers'? How do I talk you out of what you _think _you want to do here before you guys get your tails handed to you by that network of goons working out of that villa on the hillside?"

"Whoever would've thought Hochstetter would end up being so popular?" Carter asked nobody in particular.

"Andrew..." Newkirk took a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket and held it in his lips as he reached for his lighter. "This is hardly a popularity contest, you know." Next thing he knew, a very large hand with heavy rings on every finger had his right arm in a grip that threatened to cut off the circulation below his elbow.

"B.A. doesn't approve of cigarette smoking," Face advised him. "You might want to put that away before he gets mad."

"Is that right? I've got a news flash for your hulkin' friend here; I'm well over the age of eighteen and I'll smoke if I like."

"Actually you might want to hold off," Hannibal advised. "He's kind of on edge as it is."

"_He's_ on edge? I'm right sorry to hear that; seems like such a sensitive bloke." He tried again to operate the lighter; B.A. released his arm but only to free up a hand to snatch the cigarette from his mouth and crush it in his hand about three inches in front of Newkirk's eyes, leaving the bejeweled fist hanging there as an indication of what might be likely to happen next if he didn't start getting some cooperation. "Now, look 'ere...!"

"Can't you control your men?" Hogan asked Hannibal.

Hannibal shrugged. "Sometimes. Every day's an adventure."

This wasn't like any military unit Hogan had ever encountered. Whoever this Colonel Smith was, not only didn't he go by the book, he probably didn't even _have_ a copy of the book. "Maybe we could get back to the matter at hand."

Newkirk could read between the lines, all right... _his_ colonel, the only one who counted here, wanted him to let this one go. He was angry, and it wasn't easy, but he repocketed both the lighter and the pack of cigarettes and did his best to pretend it had all been his own idea.

Murdock eyed him with intense interest. "Ze subject presents vith a borderline personality disorder und anti-social affect, along vith a low frustration tolerance threshold," he stated in an exaggerated nasal pseudo-Austrian dialect.

"And why don't _you _just shut your cakehole?" Newkirk snapped.

Murdock adjusted imaginary eyeglasses and licked the tip of an invisible pencil. "Zee vut I mean?"

"I thought you said he was your pilot," Hogan said to Hannibal.

"He _is… _he's also an escaped mental patient. Knows a lot about personality disorders; I'd pay attention if I were you. Where else can you get free medical advice these days?"

"I don't believe this…"

"Hogan, can I talk to you alone?"

"This concerns all of us."

"Officer to officer. I think we can settle this if you and I just take a few minutes to talk it out one on one."

Hogan had to admit that he was interested in this Lieutenant Colonel Smith, in where he had come from and what he was made of. Maybe that was worth five or ten minutes of conversation. "All right," he nodded.

"Colonel..." Kinch began, sounding about to offer a word of caution.

"We're not getting anywhere this way, Kinch. When all else fails... and it looks like it _has..._ it's time to try something else."

"We'll be back," Hannibal told the group. "Talk amongst yourselves. I'm sure you've got lots in common."

"You think _Colonel_ Hogan can really settle this with _Colonel_ Smith?" LeBeau asked as the two officers headed away from the table.

"He'll give it his best try," Kinch nodded. "That we know."

"I'm sure your Colonel Hogan is a reasonable man," Face said. "Hannibal can explain to him what needs to happen here and he'll find he agrees, I guarantee it. Hannibal has a wonderful way of putting things so that just about _anybody _can understand." And if that didn't work, he added silently to himself, Hannibal had a wealth of persuasive ways to _ensure_ that what he wanted to happen would indeed come about. Hopefully this Hogan character wasn't going to be stubborn enough to need that kind of convincing. Sometimes it wasn't pretty. Well… Hogan was asking for it.

"So this is a Rolex…" Newkirk mused. "What's all the fuss about, I wonder?"

Face's eyes went wide and his right hand clutched his left wrist. No beautiful, sparkling, exquisite, extremely expensive Rolex watch where it ought to be. Because there it was in Newkirk's hand, being given the once-over by a man with no class and a very self-satisfied smirk on his face.

"Hey, be careful with that, all right?"

"Can't see what the big to-do is about these things… set you back a few bob, I'm sure, but they tell the time only about as well as anything else, don't they?"

It was all Face could do to keep his voice from shaking. "Look, that's a diamond-inlay special edition…"

"Really?" Newkirk flipped it over in his palm to look at the back. "Shock-proof too, I imagine?" He gave it a one-handed toss and caught it smartly. "Should be, for all that money."

"Let's not test it, okay?" Face held out a nervous hand. "C'mon…"

"You call yourself a con man?" Newkirk chuckled. "_I'll_ tell you who's pullin' the con here; it's the bloke who owns the company and gets you lot to pay his prices, that's who." 'Benchwarming', indeed.

Face was too intent on his precious watch to notice, but both Murdock and B.A. were staring at him with wide-eyed astonishment. "Did I just see what I _think_ I saw?" Murdock asked the big man.

"Yeah..." B.A. nodded. "That old guy just ripped off the _Faceman_. I ain't never seen nothin' like that before in my _life_."


	5. Chapter 5

The two colonels found a spot next to the fountain in front of the hotel, in direct sight of their respective teams, to prove that things were on the up-and-up... at least so far... but far enough removed to have a private conversation. Neither trusted the other. That was about all they agreed upon up to this point.

"Who hired you?" Hogan asked.

"That's privileged information."

"I'm real good at keeping secrets."

"I didn't say you weren't. I just said I'm not going to tell you."

"I expected some headaches on this mission, but I thought they were all gonna come from Hochstetter!"

"I think you're a little out of your element here, Colonel. Why don't you and your men spend a couple of days in lounge chairs with a few pitchers of piña coladas at one of the beachfront resorts, let us do what we do best, and then you can read about it in the papers when we're through."

"You forgot shuffleboard." Hogan studied Hannibal's face for several seconds. "It's all about the money for you, isn't it?"

Hannibal puffed his cigar. "Pretty much."

"Well, for us it's personal."

"Interesting angle, but it doesn't pay too many bills." Hannibal thought for a moment. "I remember hearing about your operation in Germany… they used it as a case study at the military academies for years after the war ended. They used to call you guys Hogan's Heroes, right? You were the best."

"Gee, thanks," Hogan responded insincerely.

"Back _then_."

"What's your point?"

"Nothing personal, Hogan, but you're living in the past."

"I'd put my crew up against any other, any time."

"Good way to get them killed. The famous Hogan pride; I remember hearing about that too. They're not soldiers anymore, and they've probably got families who'd like to see them back in one piece. Your demolition man can't even remember to turn on his hearing aid; he's shaking hands with senility and you just plain won't admit it. What are you gonna tell his wife when something happens to him?"

"Carter?" Hogan shook his head. "Carter's always been like that. But when it comes down to the wire, he always comes through. Every time."

Was that entirely true? One word suddenly echoed in Hogan's memory. _Hamleeding. _He bet the military wasn't using _that _caper in their training program. Carter's memory had never been top-notch, although he seldom made a mistake when it came to setting explosives. They'd tried for days to get him to remember the one simple name 'Leedingham', to send the Krauts on that wild-goose chase, but when it came down to the wire Carter hadn't been able to spit it out and Hogan had had to run headlong from the barracks to Klink's office to rescue the whole operation. It _wasn't_ senility; Carter had been that way even in his late twenties. But still…

"Hogan, I'm trying to do you a favor here. I've seen my own men cut down and there's nothing worse for a commanding officer, especially when you know it's _your fault_. You want to know why I wanted to talk to you alone; the reason is that I don't think your men need to hear this. If they're that loyal to you, and I'm not doubting that they are, they wouldn't listen to _me_ anyway, if I even _suggested_ that you're in over your head. Back off from Hochstetter. He's a nasty piece of work. My team and I can handle him. We'll bring him in. That way we're happy, our client is happy, Hochstetter is _un_happy, and _you_ could be happy too if you just gave it half a chance. You can't always have things your own way."

"Forget it, Smith. We're not giving up that easy. We owe Hochstetter for more than I could ever find time to tell you about. He's ours."

"I wish you hadn't said that, Hogan."

"I wish _you_ weren't even _here_, Smith."

The two men parted. Neither looked happy. Their respective teams, still waiting nearby, didn't look happy either. Kinch, Newkirk, Carter and LeBeau clustered tightly around Hogan when he got back to their sideline; Hannibal's team went the other way… including Face with his Rolex safely back on his wrist.

"What happened, Colonel?" Kinch asked.

"Not much. He won't back down… still insists they're going to nab Hochstetter and bring him in for their client."

"Somebody's _paying_ them to do that?"

"Maybe _we_ shoulda thought of that," Carter joked.

"Yeah, maybe we should have," Hogan had to admit.

"What did you tell Colonel Smith?"

"I told him we weren't getting out of his way. Was that what I _should_ have told him? Or do you guys think we should just back off and let them handle it? We didn't count on this when we decided to come down here; we didn't think there'd be any competition."

"You mean just let them take Hochstetter right out from under our noses, after all this?" Newkirk shook his head. "No, sir. I can't agree to that."

"Me either," LeBeau spoke up. "We've been planning this for too long. I say we continue."

"I suppose I should tell you that Colonel Smith doesn't think much of our chances."

"Well, Colonel Smith doesn't know us very well, does he?" Kinch asked.

"I guess I should _also _tell you that Colonel Smith doesn't think much of _us_, either. Practically suggested we invest in five wheelchairs and roll ourselves home."

"Well, who the heck is _he _to go saying things like that?" Carter demanded in outrage… or the closest amiable Carter ever actually _got _to outrage. "Who does he think he is, anyway? _Boy, _that burns me up. I'd like to show _him _a thing or two."

"We've got the chance to. Maybe."

"I say we take it," Kinch said.

"Me too, sir," Newkirk added.

"_Moi aussi_," LeBeau nodded.

"And _how_," Carter finished.

Hogan looked… tried to _really _look… at his men. Okay, they had a few extra years on them; that was no secret. A few extra pounds here and there, maybe. But they also had heart, and spirit, and know-how, and there were five of them against one Hochstetter. They had a reasonable chance of pulling this off; if he hadn't thought so he never would have agreed to follow through with this idea that had come to them shortly after the war and had never managed to die out. They had never forgotten. They wanted Hochstetter, they'd been willing to come all this way, and they were dead serious.

"All right," he nodded. "So what's our next move?"

oo 0 oo

"Are they crazy?" B.A. demanded after Hannibal finished filling them in on the conversation he'd just had with Hogan. "Sounds to me like they ain't right in the head!"

"No, not crazy, B.A. Overzealous. Impractical. Reckless. And I'm not surprised, since those traits were a hallmark of every Hogan operation during the Second World War."

"Overzealous, impractical and reckless, hmm?" Face mused. "Gee… that sounds like someone we know. Was this Hogan some kind of a role model for you in your younger days, Hannibal?"

"He was a great leader, and a great man. Pulled it out of the fire more times than _he _can probably even remember. You guys should read up on your military history; their operation in Germany shortened the war and saved a lot of lives. But he's been off the field for a long time, and his men are nowhere near as sharp as they used to be either. I think he's going to get some of them killed. And I'd like to do what we can to prevent that, so we need to throw a net over our major and get him back to the States as quick as we can. If Hogan has a while to think about it he'll realize that's the best thing for everybody."

"That guy Hochstetter gave us the slip once already, Hannibal," Murdock said. "And now he knows someone's on his tail."

"Right. Thanks to Hogan, our job just got that much harder."

oo 0 oo

At three o'clock in the morning, the kind of 'dark' they had in Buenos Aires wasn't the same as it was in Los Angeles. Here, despite the lights of the city, it was clear enough so you could still see the stars. Hannibal didn't have time for star-gazing as he swung himself over the top of the eight-foot wrought-iron fence that surrounded Hochstetter's compound, but he did notice out of the corner of his eye that they were indeed up there. Before he left the city, he was hoping to get a better look at them. The beach would be a good spot. Add a blanket, a drink served in a pineapple with a long straw and a tiny paper umbrella, plus a shapely blonde, and he almost wouldn't _need _any stars to make the evening memorable.

The garage was just ahead of him. Large and elaborate, in the modern-day affluent style that was popular in the better neighborhoods, it was also on an alarm. Hannibal had expected that, and was prepared for it. The same pocket that contained the radio-controlled tracking device he intended to put under the hood of the black limousine also held wire cutters and an electrical switch.

Four minutes later, he had neatly bridged, cut, and then spliced the wires back into a circuit through the new switch. In the 'off' position, that would allow him to open a window and enter the garage. When he left, he'd simply set it back to 'on' and the guards would never be the wiser. B.A. had had a good idea with that one. Cut wires were a glow-in-the-dark advertisement that someone had broken in, and combined with the fiasco at the _Brasserie _that morning, that was the last thing they needed.

The window opened noiselessly and he eased himself over the sill. He tried the driver's side door of the limo. Unlocked. Why did people leave car doors unlocked just because they were parked in garages? Sloppy, sloppy practice. Well, he wasn't complaining. He reached under the dashboard for the hood release, popped it open, and working quickly and quietly had the tracking device in place in under five minutes. Perfect. A good night's work. He dropped the hood very gently and pressed it back into the latched position with as little sound as possible, then made his way back to the window. He climbed back over the sill and dropped to the soft ground outside, closed the pane, turned around...

… and found himself nose-to-nose with Colonel Hogan.

"Hi," Hogan grinned. "Hey, if we're gonna dance, I want to lead."

oo 0 oo

"You didn't notice that the car already _had _a tracking device under the hood?"

"I didn't exactly have the time to take inventory!" Hannibal snapped back the answer to Face's question. He'd liked this swanky hotel room when he'd checked into it. At the moment, he didn't like anything.

"'A bunch of old men', you said. 'Way past their prime', you said…"

"I know what I said!"

"But _our_ tracker was better," Murdock insisted. "I betcha it was... wasn't it, Colonel?"

"About ten years newer, with more bells and whistles. But the one they already had in there was working just fine. The switch I fixed to the alarm system wires was pretty slick too... but Hogan's electronics man had rigged a splice that might not have been quite as pretty but it was faster and worked just as well. And, my absolute favorite part of the whole embarrassing scenario, Hogan's second-story man had already picked the lock on the limo, and there I was thinking Hochstetter's guards were stupid enough to leave it unlocked. Hogan's got a geriatric crew, a hard-of-hearing demolition man, a chain-smoker who lifts watches, a radio man who probably thinks radios still have tubes in them, and a pocket-sized French dictionary. But they _still _got there before we did, and they had everything _we_ wanted in place before we even showed up!"

The phone in the suite rang. The four of them stood there looking at it for two rings, three, four...

"Get it," Hannibal directed. "I'll just bet I know who it is." At almost four o'clock in the morning, who else could it possibly be?

Face picked it up. "Yes?" he said as coldly as he could manage. There was a pause, then he said "Hold on" and covered the receiver with his hand. "Hannibal... Hogan says he wants to talk to you."

"I'm sure he does."

"He suggests we all get a few hours sleep and meet up for brunch by the pool mid-morning... he says he gives you his word as an officer they won't make any more moves tonight if you give him yours that _we _won't."

It was tempting to say 'no deal', but that wouldn't solve anything. Dawn was nearly breaking; there wasn't much more they could do for the next several hours anyway. "Tell Hogan we'll be there. No more maneuvers tonight."

Face transmitted Hannibal's message to Hogan and hung up the phone. "Poolside, ten o'clock."

"He was laughing, wasn't he?" asked Hannibal.

Face nodded. "How'd you guess?"

"Because that's what _I'd_ be doing if the shoe were on the other foot."

"Well, now we know what it feels like to get _kicked_ with that other foot, don't we?"


	6. Chapter 6

Poolside, ten o'clock. Hannibal hadn't been able to get much sleep. The events of the night before still grated on him. The man responsible for those events was already sitting there waiting for them, with his four shopworn associates looking altogether too pleased with themselves. The brunch at this hotel was probably excellent. But Hannibal didn't think he could eat a thing.

"Morning, Smith," Hogan called cheerfully as he lifted his coffee cup in greeting. "You should try the eggs benedict; it's terrific."

"You got lucky last night, Hogan." Hannibal took a seat. "You know that, don't you?"

"Well, there's luck, and then there's _luck._"

"And _we_ had _both _kinds last night," Kinch said with a confident grin. LeBeau chuckled and gave him a chummy punch in the shoulder.

"So you had your little victory, very cute, and now we can get back to business. You know if we keep this up we're going to keep stepping on each other's toes and sooner or later someone's going to get hurt. Right?"

"Probably," Hogan nodded. "So why don't _your_ toes step aside so _ours_ can operate?

"That's not quite what I had in mind. I have a proposal to make."

Face took the seat to Newkirk's left where the waitress had just set another cup and saucer, and gave him an insincere smile. "Hey there. You mind passing the sugar?"

"The least I can do," Newkirk replied with a smile every bit as shallow and meaningless, then reached across the table for the sugar bowl. "You need any 'elp packin' your bags, you let me know… be glad to give you a 'and with that as well."

"Your alphabet doesn't have as many letters as the one the rest of us use, does it?" Face poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe on the table. "Uh, the cream too… when you get a chance?"

"Oh, allow me." The small ceramic pitcher landed in front of Peck's place with a flourish. "Anything else?"

"How are you at buttering toast?"

"Not on your life. And I'll have my watch back now, sonny. Get in a bit more practice… let's say twenty years or so… and then try again. You do that like you're wearin' boxin' gloves."

With a sigh, Face handed him back his wristwatch. "Okay, you win, you caught me… hey, nice Timex, by the way; a true classic. And that's real Naugahyde on the band, huh? You don't tend to see that too much anymore."

Newkirk strapped it back on his wrist, shook his head in disdain, and went back to his breakfast. _Amateur_. He'd had no trouble feeling Peck clumsily boost the watch when he'd been asked to reach for the sugar; LeBeau could be more subtle with a spatula.

Face looked dejected… for about three seconds. Then he lit up with a broad smile, pulled a brown leather wallet out of his inside coat pocket and opened it up to casually thumb through the contents. "You know, this is really interesting… so while _we_ have a different president of the United States on every denomination, the English have the same queen on _all _their money. I wonder why that is?"

Newkirk nearly choked on his poached egg. He grabbed for his inside jacket pocket, already afraid of what he was going to find… or _not _find. _Damn. _Empty. "All right, Peck; hand it back. _Now._"

Face shamelessly flipped open the photo section. "_Hey… _pretty girl." He studied Newkirk's furious face for a moment, then looked back at the photo. "So… not a relative, I take it."

"That's his daughter," Carter supplied. "Her name's Frances."

"Really? I never would have guessed; not much of a resemblance. _Very_ pretty…" He raised an eyebrow. "Single?"

"If there's a God in heaven this is the closest the likes of _you'll _ever get to her," Newkirk snapped. "Now hand that over before I give your mates another reason to call you 'Face'!"

Face gave a couple of _tsks _as he passed the wallet back to Newkirk. "You should really be more careful in a foreign country… there's a lot of pickpockets around, you know. You have no idea what _some _of them are capable of."

Murdock held up one hand towards Face for a high-five. "My man! Way to go, _muchacho_! I knew you wouldn't let the home team down!"

Young Peck had really touched an exposed nerve on his old friend, LeBeau thought with a certain amount of amusement. Newkirk stopped making eye contact as he re-pocketed his wallet, and looked mortally embarrassed. So, naturally LeBeau couldn't resist. "Peter, you mean you really didn't know that he got your…"

"Leave off."

"And he lifted your watch just to distract you?"

"Leave _off_, I'm tellin' you."

"And _you_ didn't feel a _thing_?"

"Ouch," Kinch chuckled.

"_Mais ils se voient dans la glace." _

"What does that mean?" asked Carter.

"They see one another in the mirror... it's like they're the same person."

"I wonder if we might get back to talking about Hochstetter," Hogan broke in. "I mean, if you're finished."

"_Oui, _I'm finished," LeBeau nodded with satisfaction.

"And we think Newkirk might be too," Kinch added.

That made Carter laugh a little louder than he'd actually intended to. "Um… sorry."

Hogan turned back to Hannibal. "I think you said something about a proposal. I'm pretty sure I'll hate it, but go ahead; I'm listening."

"Obviously you're not giving up."

"Right."

"And obviously _we're _not going to give up."

"Sorry to hear that."

"And it seems that, through some convoluted logic on both our parts, we each feel we have a valid claim to this operation. What I propose is that we settle it with brevity and civility. We draw lots. Winner take all."

Hogan wasn't sure he'd understood him correctly. "You're saying we should _flip _for Hochstetter?"

Hannibal shrugged. "Heads or tails, high card, draw straws… I don't much care. But we can't keep going the way we've been going. What do you say? Fair and square."

"Then we better not cut cards," Carter spoke up. "Newkirk's are marked. And we better not flip a coin; he's got a two-headed one."

"Busy boy, aren't you?" Face asked Newkirk. "Got any loaded straws?"

"Andrew," Newkirk began as he pointed toward B.A., "that big fellow over there ain't had his breakfast yet. Unless you want to find yourself on a platter with an apple in your mouth, _shut up!_"

"Carter, whoever told you honesty is the best policy _lied_." Hogan thought for a moment. Well, there went the temptation to cheat. He was an honorable man, but there were exceptions to every rule. Newkirk's toybox might have come in very handy if Carter'd only had his mouth full. "The fact is that I haven't got a better idea. If we wait too long… or even worse, if we mess each other up again like what happened in the restaurant, Hochstetter might decide to go to ground, and we'd _all _be out of luck."

"You're starting to see it my way."

"Not by choice." He sighed and sat back in his chair. "Okay, I guess we don't have any other options. We'll draw straws."

"One condition."

"Wait a second; you get to pick the plan _and _you want one condition?"

"I think you'll be okay with this one." Hannibal pointed to Carter. "We want _him _to hold the straws."

LeBeau scowled at Carter. "Traitor."

"I just happen to have an honest face," Carter protested meekly.

"You just happen to have the world's biggest mouth," Kinch corrected.

Hannibal took a plastic pick holding a maraschino cherry to the top of a pastry and snapped it in two, one half somewhat longer than the other, then handed the pieces to Carter, who shook them in his cupped hands for several seconds, then slipped his hands under the table to get them into position.

It might have been purely an accident, but probably not: Newkirk's elbow happened to knock his teaspoon off the table just then. "Reach and you're a dead man!" B.A. barked.

When Carter lifted his right hand again, the two broken edges were absolutely even to the eye. Hidden in his palm, behind his curled fingers and thumb, were the uneven ends of one long straw and one short one. Which was which?

"Go ahead," Smith invited Hogan. "I've called enough shots; you go first."

Carter's eyes were squeezed shut… well, no help there; scrupulously honest Andrew wasn't even going to give any suggestion of impropriety, much less any broad hints as to which of the two plastic bits was the long one. Hogan was uncomfortably aware that the eyes of the rest of his men were drilling holes through him, and hoping very, very hard that this would go their way. If it didn't, they'd all just flown thousands of miles for a couple of pretty good meals and one of the most humiliating defeats of their lives. Hung out to dry before they'd even had their shot.

"_Dépêche-toi_; we can't stand the suspense!" LeBeau, surprised at his own outburst, spoke more quietly his next word. "Sir…"

Taking a deep breath, Hogan pulled out the one on the right. It looked pretty long.

Or at least he thought so until Hannibal drew the remaining straw, which was a good three-quarters of an inch longer.

"Thank you, gentlemen." Hannibal allowed himself a self-satisfied grin as he extended his hand for Hogan to shake. "No hard feelings?"

None that he was willing to talk about. But Hogan accepted his hand. "I've only got one thing to say, Smith. Nail him."

Hannibal and the rest of his team got to their feet. "That's the idea. And I think we'd better get started. We've got a lot of work to do. Go ahead and put brunch on my tab." The four of them left the table and started back to the hotel lobby. Murdock was skipping. Backwards. If it hadn't been for B.A. grabbing his arm and yanking him back on course, he might have gone right into the pool.

LeBeau had his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. Kinch let out a long, tense breath. Newkirk rammed his right fist into his left palm. Carter pushed the last bite of grilled bread back and forth on his plate with his finger. None of them seemed to be able to find any words… an unusual situation, for all of them to fall silent at the same time.

"Sorry, fellas," Hogan said at last. "Looks like we came all this way for nothing."

oo 0 oo

Inside the spacious office in the mansion on the hill, one man worked at a large ornate oak desk. He was well past retirement age.

He would _never _truly retire.

Major Wolfgang Hochstetter of the Gestapo had become a 'civilian' again of sorts, quite against his will, in the spring of 1945. His last official act for the Nazi Party had been to burn a good portion of the most incriminating records he had close at hand even while the Russians were outside his window taking possession of the once-proud German capital. There were plenty more records where those had come from, and Hochstetter had had a good number of them shipped to him in various clandestine ways over the years. The far wall of the large paneled office was lined with heavy wooden file cabinets. Nearly all of them were bulging. The labels on the drawers dated from 1937 when he had begun to truly make a name for himself in the Party. He had joined in 1931, and six years later had been singled out as an up-and-coming, ruthless type who had a bright future, and after that he had moved quickly through the ranks. The somewhat-faded photograph on the wall of himself standing with Heinrich Himmler had been taken in 1941. Call it a keepsake... everyone had a sentimental side, even though his was rarely displayed. Those days were long gone and, despite the dreams of many escaped Nazi officers, would likely never come again. The hoped-four Fourth Reich had never been adequately organized, its proponents mostly left to gather for occasional reunions, drinking schnapps and talking about the good old days.

Still, the here and now wasn't so bad. He had a fine home, more than enough money to last him the rest of his life, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had gotten away with murder... literally and often. Oh, there were one or two matters he had been unable to attend to... there was a file cabinet dedicated to _those _as well. But all in all, things had gone well for him here in South America. He had lived in Venezuela, Brazil and Paraguay before finally settling down in Buenos Aires. He liked it here best of all. And he didn't intend to allow anyone to spoil it for him.

There was a firm knock on the heavy door. He hated timid knocks; his staff knew better than to tap on the door if they didn't want to invite his wrath. "Come," he called crisply.

Rutger, tall and muscular, and the closest he could come to having a 'favorite' aide (and, he believed, was somehow related to him in a second-cousin-twice-removed sort of a way somewhere along the line in his mother's family, although he had long since lost track of exactly how), entered and stood at attention when he reached the desk. "_Guten Tag_, _Herr Major_."

"_Guten Tag_, Rutger. What have you found out?"

He laid the thick folder on the desk in front of his superior. "This is the group we have been tracking, Major. Their leader is a young Argentinean of German descent, by the name of Bruno Knauer."

Hochstetter's lip elevated in a sneer of contempt. "Of German descent... and he plans attacks on German officers?"

"We believe that his organization was responsible for the incident at the _Brasserie Française_. And please allow me to tell you how grateful I am that the Major was not injured in the attack."

Not unless you counted being nearly torn limb-from-limb by those four would-be assassins... but he was far too proud to admit that he was still having trouble raising his arms above his shoulders after that free-for-all at his favorite restaurant. Regrettably, there would be no more _coq au vin _in his immediate future; he was aware that he had become somewhat predictable in his habits and that was how this Knauer had been able to track him. It was normal to become a bit less security-conscious after the passage of so many years, to start to become too comfortable and complacent, but he would not allow himself to fall into that trap again.

"Where is Knauer at the present time?"

"He is working out of an Underground cell located somewhere in the Recoleta. We are confident that we will have his exact location very soon."

"Is this Knauer any good?"

Rutger looked suddenly uncomfortable. "He… is believed to be the reason you have not had the pleasure of the company of Major Strauss, Captain Gunther, or Colonel von Dieter in quite some time. There were rumors that the colonel was in fact... executed..."

Hochstetter tugged at his shirt collar, feeling suddenly constricted. Oh yes... he _had _been wondering why the attendance at his social events seemed to be declining. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen von Dieter in over a year. "_Ja... _well, as soon as you have the detailed information, bring it to me and I will let you know how we are going to deal with this young German who knows nothing at all about being German."

Rutger brought his heels together in a solid click. "_Javohl_, _Herr Major._ I will of course keep you informed."


	7. Chapter 7

Hannibal Smith was a lot of things, but one thing he was _not_ was a procrastinator.

The very night of the poolside straw-drawing that had given the A-Team the post position, he had come up with a plan and it was already underway. There was really only one thing about it that gave him pause: he believed there was a chance, however slight, that Hogan didn't intend to keep his part of the bargain, and that the Team would encounter him or his men while their plan was being carried out. If that happened, Face, B.A. and Murdock had their orders: neutralize whoever got in their way, and it didn't matter who it was. If they had to tie up the illustrious Colonel Hogan himself and stuff him in a closet somewhere in the villa, it would be his own fault. Hannibal didn't think Hogan was that kind of a man, but it paid to have all one's bases covered in situations like this one.

His plan began with infiltration. Murdock and Face, under cover of darkness, were to enter the main house and locate Hochstetter at what Hannibal estimated to be the most vulnerable time and place... about three o'clock in the morning, in his bedroom, where it was almost certain he would be sound asleep and less likely to create trouble.

"I hate working swing shift," Face grumbled as he tested the rose arbor for strength before putting his weight on it. "This is the second night in a row we've been out at three o'clock."

"Doesn't seem to bother you when you're out on the town with some swimsuit model," Murdock reminded him.

"_Nothing _bothers me when I'm out on the town with some swimsuit model." The arbor would support their weight... he thought. "You go first."

"That means you're not sure how strong it is." But Murdock was game. He put his full weight on the white lattice structure and gave it a shake. Not bad. _Might_ hold two. And at least it smelled nice, with the fragrance of roses in the warm night air... they often worked in places that smelled pretty vile, if they had any aroma at all. That called for a pause for poetry, he thought, and he called up his best Sir John Gielgud impression to recite it in. "A rose by any other name... never gathers any moss."

"Murdock, you're mixing your metaphors."

Close John Gielgud; open H.M. Murdock. "I never mix my metaphors. That would be like shootin' flies in a barrel of vinegar." With that he snapped off one fragrant blossom, stuck the stem in his teeth, and began to work the rest of the way up the trellis toward the second floor.

Face waited until Murdock was at eye-level with the second-floor balcony before calling up in a hushed whisper. "Anything to report?"

"Jutht that I wish I'd remembered roses have thorns... I think I just pierthed my tongue."

"We're on the job; you can put in for workman's comp. Keep going."

Once Murdock was over the railing of the balcony, he made a sound like a pigeon cooing. Actually it sounded more like a turkey gargling. Face took that as his cue to start up himself, took hold of the trellis and began to climb. Murdock had been right... roses had thorns. "Ow... _ow..._"

"What kinda birdcall is that?" Murdock whispered.

"I think it's the Gloveless Sap-Sucker... _ow_!"

Face felt like a pincushion by the time he was able to hoist himself over the low railing and onto the balcony. He stood watching, and sticking the worst of the multiple scratches and punctures on his hands into his mouth one by one and then blowing on them to try and ease the stinging, while Murdock checked all around the frame of the mullioned French door for an alarm. "Well..." Murdock finally began in a whisper, "I got bad news, and weird news."

"I'll take the bad news first."

"The door _is _on alarm. And it's a slick one… the wires are embedded in the glass; can't be cut without shattering it."

Not surprising... if the garage was alarmed, it would be crazy for the house _not _to be. "What's the weird news?"

"The dang door's _open_." He gestured to the center, where the twin glass doors normally met to latch. And he was right... there was a good three-inch gap between them.

"What do you think that means?"

"Could mean this'll be an early night. We might be able to open it right up with no alarm goin' off, get right in there and pick up our door prize. It's plenty hot out tonight; maybe he just likes a little fresh air in the bedroom."

"What else could it mean?"

"Could be one of them alarms that only sounds if a window gets opened any more or any less than it's already set at. In _that _case, we've got another chance at an early night... they'll prob'ly shoot us."

"Terrific. How do we tell the difference?"

"There's no way to tell by lookin'."

"You mean we have to _move_ the door to find out if the alarm goes off when we move the door?"

"Nope." He removed a circuit-tester from his jacket pocket. "B.A. gave me this before we left... thought it might come in handy."

Bless B.A.'s heart... there must be one under that fortress-like facade of his somewhere.

Murdock very carefully tested several points on the wire that ran around the framing of the French doors, all the way to the metal contacts on the latch itself. "It's cold," he shook his head. "Shouldn't go off."

"_Shouldn't_, or _won't_?"

Face sure asked a lot of questions, and there was really only one way to answer this one. Murdock took a deep breath and gave the door a slight shove, widening the opening by a good eight inches. Silence. "_Won't_," he affirmed. "Let's go."

The large, opulent bedroom held a European-style canopy bed so vast that the form under the sheet seemed almost ridiculously small in scale. "Wouldn't it be funny if it was just a pile of laundry like in the prison pictures?" Murdock whispered.

"Oh, a riot," Face nodded. "Let's hope not; I think the bounty for laundry is pretty low in today's depressed economy... even if it's clean."

With one standing on one side of the bed and one on the other, the two of them lowered their sidearms to the level of the sleeping man's head... up close, Murdock's laundry theory was pretty well shot; it was definitely a man occupying the bed. "Rise and shine," Face said loudly enough to wake him. The man's eyes snapped open and he stared up at the two gun barrels in alarm.

"And you better be _mucho_ careful about how fast and how far you rise until you hear us tell you just exactly the way we want you to do it," Murdock advised.

"_Ja_..." their prisoner nodded. "I understand..."

"You don't touch any alarms, you don't even _think _about it. We're goin' for a little sleepwalk, Major Hochstetter. You dig?"

Another slow, cautious nod. "_Ja_... don't shoot..."

"That's entirely up to you," Face informed him. Mr. Schmidt back in Palm Springs hadn't said anything about 'dead or alive', but in his own opinion that was always an option.

In this case, it turned out to be unnecessary. There were no guards to stop them, no alarms went off. They were able to smuggle their prisoner out the service entrance after he advised them how to disengage the silent alarm at that door... putting the gun barrel to his temple turned out to be Step One; in their experience that was generally the international gesture for 'pretty please'. Murdock duly double-checked with the circuit tester... it was cold, all right, and they made it outside without incident.

B.A. was waiting for them in the dooryard. "The jeep's on the next block," he said. "Let's go."

"You expect me to walk all that way barefoot?" their captive demanded.

B.A. scowled down at him with contempt. "Sorry... where are my manners?" He grabbed hold of the elderly man, slung him over his shoulder, and started off at a half-run towards the distant jeep.

"I like the way B.A. handles himself in these situations," Face told Murdock. "No muss, no fuss, just all action."

"Last one to the jeep's a rotten _huevo_." Murdock took off at a trot after the rapidly retreating sergeant.

Bed was going to feel really, _really_ good tonight. Face gladly followed his teammates into the warm South American night.

oo 0 oo

Bright and early the next morning, Hogan and his men occupied a table by the tennis courts, sipping coffee, examining a guidebook, and watching two young women play singles. To be more specific, Hogan and Kinch were drinking coffee, Carter was perusing the guidebook, and Newkirk and LeBeau were watching the tennis players. One was blonde and the other brunette. Their favorite flavors.

Hannibal Smith was the person Hogan least wanted to see approaching them. Much less see him smiling like the cat who had the canary… plus a couple of budgies and maybe even a goldfinch or two… in its mouth. He forced himself to remain cordial anyway, and hoped the boys would follow his lead. "Smith… you caught us between shuffleboard matches. If you've got some free time, maybe you'd like to referee the next one."

"Just thought I'd stop in to say goodbye."

Hogan knew what that meant. "You got Hochstetter, then?"

Hannibal nodded. "Told you we would. Would you like to give him a piece of your mind before we load him up and take off?"

Did he? Hogan wasn't sure. It would give Smith another chance to gloat, and he wasn't sure his stomach could tolerate that. It would also give the A-Team another chance to rub his unit's nose in it, and they'd had about as much as they could take already… Newkirk's fuse was burned down to the nub and about to go off any minute, and LeBeau's was smoking as well. "I don't know that that's necessary."

"You sure? I'd love to see the look on his face."

It might be worth it at that. "What do you think, fellas?"

"A final chance to stick it to Hochstetter?" Kinch asked. "I dunno… sounds pretty tempting."

"Okay, why not?" Hogan got to his feet. "Give him a little something _more _to remember us by."

The box truck Hannibal led them to was stationed at the far edge of the parking lot, behind the cover of some shrubbery and a row of commercial refuse containers. For obvious reasons: it wouldn't have been a good idea to let the rest of the hotel guests get a good look at what was going on around it, with Murdock and Peck both carrying automatic weapons, one at the front and the other at the rear of the vehicle. Inside the back, Baracus stood over their prisoner, who was bound hand and foot and had a gag in his mouth. Baracus didn't really _need _a weapon to get his point across, but he held one anyway.

"Expecting trouble?" Hogan asked conversationally.

"You never know," Hannibal replied. "Better safe than sorry."

"Uh huh." Hogan folded his arms, stood steady and gave the bound man the visual once-over. "Well, Major…"

Then he stopped. No. It couldn't be. This wasn't possible.

"Go ahead," Hannibal invited. "Haven't you got anything to say?"

"Well, yeah, I do… I'd like to ask _you_ a question."

"Okay, go ahead."

"Um… who's that?"

Hannibal laughed. "Nice try, Hogan."

Hogan cracked a sly smile. "No, I mean it… who _is _that?"

The same height, the same build, the same general features as Hochstetter… but the more Hogan looked, even after all these years, the more he was certain the wool had been pulled over the A-Team's eyes. It had been tempting… oh, so tempting… to just shut up about it, let them put whoever this was on their airplane and fly off into the sunset with him. Who knows; maybe he was a war criminal as well, with a laundry list of crimes to rival Hochstetter's own. But there was a client back home who'd paid these guys to deliver the real goods, and this… whoever it was… was not what he'd ordered. Smith's team had fumbled the ball on their own goal line. And Hogan wasn't above being pleased about it.

Newkirk leaned in closer. "Blimey, sir… you're right; that _ain't _Hochstetter!"

"Don't believe me if you don't want to, Smith," Hogan told Hannibal. "You want to pack this guy up and take him to the States, that's between you and him… whoever he is."

Hogan's men were backing him up, that was all. It was a good try. But Hannibal had to be sure. "Face!"

Peck ran around to the rear of the vehicle. "What's the problem, Colonel?"

"Hogan says this _isn't_ Hochstetter, Face… would you like to tell me who it _is?_"

"Of _course _it's Hochstetter! We pulled him out of Hochstetter's house, his own _bedroom_… he _answered_ to Hochstetter… look at the photograph!"

That was what Hannibal _was _doing. And he wasn't liking what he was seeing. There _was _a very strong resemblance, but it was beginning to look more and more like a mistake had been made, a _big _one, and there was no way he could blame Hogan for it this time. "B.A." He gestured to the gag in the man's mouth, which Baracus cut neatly with a pocketknife rather than wasting time with the knot. "Give me your name," he ordered. "Your _real _name, this time."

"My name is Wolfgang Hochstetter…"

The thin, trembling voice made Hogan laugh. "Oh, that's beautiful… this guy sounds like a Kraut version of Wally Cox."

Face and Murdock, who had both heard for themselves what the major really sounded like back in the ill-fated attempt to get their hands on him in the restaurant, looked at one another wordlessly. Hogan wasn't putting them on… damn it all; this _wasn't _Hochstetter!

Hannibal's next order to B.A. didn't require words… B.A. grabbed the man by the entire front of his bathrobe, stood over him and gave him a solid shake. "Try again, fool!"

"I told you, I am Wolfgang Hochstetter…"

Now Newkirk and LeBeau were laughing too; in fact, they had all they could do to hold one another upright. "_I am Wolfgang Hochstetter_" Newkirk repeated in a mocking falsetto, which in turn cracked Kinch and Carter up. He hiked up one leg of his trousers to expose a somewhat less than photogenic lower leg. "And _I'm_ Betty Grable, mate!"

One more shake from B.A., and the mystery man decided the jig was up. "All right, all _right_… I am Rudolf Hilgenbecker!"

"And just what the hell is a Rudolf Hilgenbecker?" Smith demanded.

The older man still kept one wary eye on B.A., but he had a definite measure of pride in his voice as he spoke. "I am adjoutant to Major Hochstetter… I have served as his aide… and, on occasion, his double… he has been tracked before, by bounty hunters such as yourselves, and he has never been caught… and he will not be caught _this _time."

"It's sure starting to look that way, isn't it?" Hogan chuckled. "Thanks, Smith; I really needed that. It's been one of those days. But I guess yours hasn't been all that great either."

"Put this guy on ice," Hannibal ordered B.A. "I don't much care how or where; just get him out of my sight." He turned to Face. "How could you make a mistake like that, Lieutenant?"

"Have a heart, Hannibal… you see him yourself, you can't deny there's a strong resemblance. He was in Hochstetter's _pajamas, _for heaven's sake! How many people wear _your _pajamas besides _you_?"

"Lieutenant, I'm not really all that interested in excuses at the moment! We've still got a job to finish; are you up to it or aren't you? Because if you aren't, maybe you'd like to join Hogan's crew for shuffleboard!"

"Oh, we'd mop the floor with him, sir," advised Newkirk.

The five of them watched as Smith and his team closed up the truck, with the doppelganger still inside, then B.A. got into the cab, started the motor and began to pull away while Smith himself led Peck and Murdock back towards the hotel. Neither looked happy to be going or eager to get there.

Hogan draped one arm around the shoulders of Newkirk and LeBeau on his left, and the other around Carter and Kinch on his right. "Boys," he announced with a broad smile, "I know it's early... but let me buy you a drink."

oo 0 oo

That afternoon found Hogan's unit on their way to a rendez-vous. For all intents and purposes they were tourists now, and according to the guidebook, the _Cementerio de Recoleta_ was a prime attraction. It also had the advantage of being extremely easy to find, and loaded with visitors so it would be a simple matter to blend in with the crowd. Still, there were one or two drawbacks.

"A cemetery?" Carter asked, staring at the massive white stone wall and Doric columns that framed the front gate.

"Are you kidding? It's not just 'a cemetery'; it's almost as famous as _Père Lachaise_ in Paris," LeBeau told him. "The architecture is _magnifique_, the history of the place, the important people who were laid to rest here… _Americans_; you can't take them anywhere! They think wherever they go there should be a theme park and a hot dog stand!"

"I just think it's kinda creepy."

"There's Bruno." Hogan gave a wave towards the worn mint-green VW van that was just pulling up to the curb on the other side of the street. The man who emerged was in his late thirties, fair-haired, and browned with the sunshine of many long South American winters. He jogged across the _Avenue Presidente Quintana_, dodging the late afternoon traffic, to join them on the curb.

"Hello, Colonel Hogan. I was surprised to get your message. Have you succeeded so quickly?" His light _Porteño _accent was edged with excitement.

"Well, there've been a few unexpected complications." That was putting it mildly.

Bruno looked concerned, but gestured toward the path that led into the _Cementerio_ from the main gate. "Let's walk. I can never be certain when I'm being followed and I prefer to be on the safe side. Tell me what has been happening. If there's anything more _I_ can do, I'm happy to help."

Carter hesitated just before the gate, still uneasy about the whole idea, but soon found himself propelled inward by Newkirk's impatient shove from behind. "_Come_ on…"

LeBeau had been right about the architecture. The elaborate stone memorials that surrounded them, standing nearly close enough to touch one another in places, were breathtaking. It was like a city of the dead, laid out in neat blocks; soaring towers and domes topped with crucifixes crowded all around by a foreground of smaller individual family mausoleums, each one magnificent in its opulence and detail. Marble angels, some with wings ten feet in diameter, clung to tombs and knelt in front of vaults in prayer. If they hadn't had so much else weighing on their minds, it would have been a fascinating place to spend an afternoon.

"I guess the best way to tell you this is just to lay it out for you," Hogan told Bruno as they all walked along the narrow cobblestone path between two rows of vaults. "We aren't going to be able to get Hochstetter."

The younger man looked shocked. "But you were so certain… our intelligence was accurate, was it not?"

"Your intelligence was flawless, Bruno. It wasn't your fault. I don't even really know how to explain it. The short version is that a foursome of American mercenaries beat us to the punch. There was no way you could have known about them. They've been paid to deliver Hochstetter to their client in the States, and there wasn't any talking them out of it. Believe me, we tried. But the bottom line is that _someone _will get him, and that's the most important thing."

The looks on their faces had pretty much convinced Bruno that they didn't really feel that way. They had so much wanted it to be _them. _"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "I know how much this meant to you."

"We wanted to let you know as soon as possible so you could concentrate your efforts elsewhere."

"I appreciate that, Colonel."

"This wasn't an easy one for us to give up, and I want you to know how much we appreciate everything you did for us… the networking, the weapons, the intelligence, everything. We could never have hoped to mount an operation like this one without your help."

"It was nothing, sir."

"You're too modest, Bruno. You've been at this half your life and you've made a big difference. Your network has made it a lot more difficult for the war criminals who are still on the lam."

"We won't rest until we find them _all_," the young man nodded.

"Well, there's one less on your plate now."

"These mercenaries you mentioned… you're sure they are capable?"

"Well…" Yes and no. Hogan had no doubt that the A-Team was persistent, determined, highly skilled, and probably usually got their way in the end. Still, the memory of that high-pitched voice claiming _I am Wolfgang Hochstetter _in the back of that box truck hadn't been so long ago that it had any chance of fading from his mind. How many tries was that flashy, undisciplined bunch of misfits going to need to get it right? But one thing he was pretty sure of… they had no intention of quitting until the job was finished. Hannibal Smith and his team had that kind of determination. Quitting probably never even occurred to them.

"These guys are a little different," Kinch confirmed. "But yeah… we think they can probably handle it."

"Well… as you say, I suppose that is the most important thing."

Hogan nodded. "If we keep telling ourselves that, maybe we'll begin to really believe it." They were on their way back to the entrance now, having circled slowly around one of the neatly arranged blocks nearest the gate.

"If I can be of any further help to you, please don't hesitate to contact me."

"We'll do that, thanks."

Bruno checked his watch. "I suppose I should be getting back. When I got your message I called to have the safe-house ready to receive the major, thinking… well, hoping…"

"Tell Gustav he can go home," Hogan nodded. "And that's where _we'll_ all be heading in a couple of days."

"You should enjoy Buenos Aires while you're here. There are many beautiful sights, places of historical significance, fine restaurants. Can I give you a lift?"

"No thanks. Taking the bus… and a little humility… will do us good." They shook hands on the curb, and then Bruno headed back across the avenue to his van.

"Where _are _we headed, sir?" Newkirk asked.

"Can we go to the zoo?" Carter suggested

"Standing in this exquisite place surrounded by almost two hundred years worth of incomparable art and architecture, you would go to the _zoo_?" LeBeau demanded.

"Paris has one; they must not be as go-shay as you're trying to make them sound," Carter informed him with confidence.

"The word is _gauche_, and all I mean is you can see that kind of thing anywhere. If you've seen one zebra you've seen them all. Look _around _you, Andrew… what do you see right _here_?"

"I see a bunch of signs I can't read. But if I was looking at a zebra, I'd know what it was _without _a sign. Even an Argentinean zebra."

Hogan slung an arm around his shoulder. "Carter, you've always defied conventional logic. Okay, if nobody has any better ideas, I'm game for the zoo."

Carter took just two steps to follow Hogan towards the bus stop before stumbling over his untied shoelace, and knelt to refasten it. Newkirk promptly tripped over him and would have gone sprawling to the pavement if Kinch hadn't been there to grab his arm. "Carter, one of these days, I'm going to _sell _you to a zoo!" Newkirk shouted at him.

"Watch where you're _goin'_, why don't you?"

Hogan was a good fifteen feet ahead of the three of them and halfway across the avenue, with LeBeau a few paces ahead of him, when Bruno Knauer's VW van erupted in a ball of fire.


	8. Chapter 8

"I think he's comin' 'round."

Hogan angled his head slightly towards the familiar heavily-accented East London voice… and very quickly realized that he felt like he'd been hit by a linebacker. His whole body pulsed with pain, head to toe. "Newkirk…?" He could hear that voice, and his own, and a strange low-pitched roaring sound, and a siren. What was going on? Hogan managed to get his eyes open at least part of the way. Newkirk knelt over him, his face showing a nasty-looking cut high on his cheek that oozed blood. Then he remembered. The explosion. The van. Newkirk was lucky he hadn't caught that bit of shrapnel in the eye, but other than that he looked to be in fair shape. "You all right…?"

"I'm all right, sir."

Then Hogan heard another voice, nearby, familiar… it was Carter, and he was repeating one word over and over again.

"Louis! _Louis_!"

About ten feet beyond Newkirk, Carter knelt next to the prone, inert form of LeBeau in the crosswalk. Hogan froze.

_Smith was right… I got Louis killed… of all the things he had to be right about, why did it have to be __that__...? _

Kinch joined Newkirk at his side a moment later. His light blue linen shirt was smudged with dirt and his eyes were bloodshot from the thick black smoke that still poured from the hulk of the destroyed Volkswagen. "Bruno…?" Newkirk asked quietly. He already knew the answer, but he had to ask.

Kinch shook his head. "Killed instantly. No chance at all of getting him out."

"I think the colonel's okay. Knocked off his feet and out cold for a few seconds, but startin' to come 'round now."

Hogan fought for some way to straighten out his throbbing head and take charge of this disaster. What was he going to say to Paulette? And the look that would be on Louis-Robert's face when he learned that his father was dead, all because Hogan had encouraged this stupid vendetta when he should have known better. He was an officer. He'd better start acting like one. "I want to see Louis…" he told Newkirk as he started to try to pull himself up to a sitting position.

"Sir… wait a moment, please; you might have some bones broke or somethin'…"

"This is _my _fault; _I _have to tell Paulette he's dead… I'm _not _gonna tell her I just laid here in the middle of the street!"

Newkirk's eyes widened in shock. "He's _not_… he's _not_ dead sir, I swear it. He got knocked unconscious, like you… he just ain't come 'round yet." The wail of an approaching siren got louder and louder. "There'll be someone here straight away to have a look at him. Don't you worry about LeBeau; any man who cooks with eel heads and snails can tough his way through anythin' _anybody_ can dish out… right?" It wasn't Newkirk's best stuff, and his heart wasn't in the attempt to distract. He was just as shaken up as Hogan was.

Now Carter was starting to crack a cautiously optimistic smile as he looked at LeBeau, and Hogan could see that he was trying to gently push down on his shoulder, rather than pull up. "Take it easy, Louis… don't move."

"Make up your mind…" LeBeau murmured vaguely. "Move, or don't move… what is it you want, Andrew…?"

"_Don't _move," he grinned in relief. Sarcasm was always a good sign.

"_D'accord… _that's my preference anyway..."

They _hadn't _lost LeBeau. Thank God. But the blackened Volkswagen across the avenue disgorging plumes of greasy smoke was a gruesome testament to the fact that they _had _lost Bruno. Bruno who'd assembled this whole operation to have it waiting and ready when they arrived. Bruno who'd offered them a lift… there could be _six _dead men in that VW bus right now, instead of one. Someone knew too much about the local Underground operation.

Someone named Hochstetter.

oo 0 oo

Sometimes these planning sessions were kind of fun, Face mused… just the four of them standing around a map, figuring all the logistics of what they were trying to accomplish, sharing their thoughts, playing off each others' ideas, everybody thinking, working together as one cohesive unit.

And then there were sessions like this one.

"I don't think I have to tell you that we _don't _want to screw this up again," Hannibal said. "We're all clear on that, right?"

"Don't worry," Face tried to reassure him. "I think we've got all the kinks worked out now."

"We'd better. I don't want to see any more stand-ins and understudies; we want the star of the show this time, and the box office isn't giving refunds."

"The way I see it, what we need to do is enter the compound at this point right here." Face tapped a point on the map with the end of a pencil.

"I still like my idea better," Murdock said.

"You mean the one where you ring the front bell and introduce yourself as a door-to-door zeppelin salesman? I'm not sure you've entirely thought that through. For instance, wouldn't you need a sample case? That kind of thing might be kind of hard to come by on short notice."

"Hey, _anybody _can sell magazine subscriptions or vacuum cleaners, man." Murdock gestured expansively and got a wild gleam in his eye. "I'm thinkin' _big_!"

"Right..." Face nodded, unconvinced. "Now, as I was saying…"

A sudden loud knock on the door interrupted him. "Never mind," Hannibal instructed. "The maid can come back later."

"We enter the compound _here_, and then we…"

The loud knock became a determined full-fisted pounding that shook the whole door. Murdock gave a long, low whistle. "Man, that is one pushy maid."

Hannibal reached for his sidearm with one hand and signaled for quiet with his other one. B.A., who could move with remarkable stealth for someone of his bulk, positioned himself against the wall to the right of the door, ready to intercept whoever it was if they managed to get through it. Murdock took up his own pistol and a post on the other side of the doorframe. If anybody got past the door _and _B.A., which was about as unlikely as rain falling _up_, they would _not _make it past what would come out of Murdock's .45.

Hannibal decided to cut right to the chase. "Nobody home!" he barked at the closed door.

"Open up, Smith!" Hogan's voice came back. "And don't bother trying to be funny; this is serious. _Dead _serious!"

As irritating as Hogan could be, and as short a time as he had known the man, something in his voice caused Hannibal to holster his gun and motion to B.A. to pull back the deadbolt and open the door. Hogan entered, followed closely by the four members of his crew, who were all looking behind them with that hunted expression that Hannibal recognized only too well. These guys thought somebody might be after them. But they weren't scared. They were mad. _Real _mad.

B.A. didn't need to be told; he stuck his head out into the hallway and looked both ways, then quickly shouldered the door closed and shot the deadbolt back into position. "Don't see nobody, Hannibal."

"What's the problem, Hogan?" Hannibal asked.

Hogan didn't mince words. "We just saw our Underground contact blown up in his car outside the _Cementerio de Recoleta_."

Now Hannibal _really_ put 'trying to be funny' on the back burner… and turned the burner off. "What happened?"

"Whoever it was worked fast. I mean _fast. _We met Bruno, we were out of sight of his van for no more than four, maybe five minutes, told him we had to give up on the Hochstetter grab and thanked him for his help. That was all. He got back in his van, turned the key, and _pow_."

And he hadn't said as much, but Hannibal could see that Hogan and his unit had been lucky. They were all smudged with dirt, smoke and blood; LeBeau with a gauze bandage encircling his forehead, Newkirk with an adhesive suture holding the cut on his face closed, Hogan himself with both forearms scraped raw to the elbow and a purpling bruise at his hairline. It was just short of a miracle that they were even up and walking around.

"Any idea who's responsible?"

"Individually? No. Ultimately? Hochstetter. He must have a line on Bruno's organization. Bruno himself said they were starting to attract attention. But he was careful; he knew what he was doing."

"Until this afternoon. So you came to tell us to watch our back door?"

"No. We came to tell you you've got help whether you like it or not. Bruno was killed trying to help _us, _and we owe him something for that."

"You and I agreed…"

"That was the _old _agreement… you guys took your shot, with no interference from us, and you blew it. We're here to see that doesn't happen again. So, Colonel Smith, we just joined the A-Team. Now what's your plan?"

How was it possible that every time Hannibal was sure that things couldn't possibly get any worse… they invariably, immediately, _did_? "And if we say no?"

"Then we'll go to three different national consulates, the Argentinean police _and _Interpol, and tell all of 'em who, what _and_ where Hochstetter is. If you think you can still operate with _them _crawling all over you and still earn your nice fat payoff for the kidnapping, be my guest. We're not taking any chances of him slipping the net again. We know him; you don't. If you don't like it, that's tough. We work together, or none of us work at all."

"Are you gonna let him talk to you like that, Hannibal?" Face asked.

A man who'd been that close to an explosion that had killed a friend could be spotted a few points for bluntness. That didn't concern Hannibal. But one thing did. "Are you sure you're in a condition… _any_ of you… to take an active part in this operation?"

"You tell us what you need done and we'll find a way to do it. Just one thing: no heavy lifting for LeBeau."

"I'm all right, _Colonel_," he assured them.

In Hannibal's opinion the diminutive Frenchman looked a little unsteady on his feet at that… but he was _on _them, and that said a lot about his character. "You might not like this plan."

"Try us," Hogan invited.

"We broke into the villa last time. And we're gonna do the same thing this time… it's the _last _thing they'll expect us to try again, especially so soon. And we're going in broad daylight."

Hogan nodded thoughtfully. "Well, it's sloppy, it doesn't make a whole lot of tactical sense, and it already _hasn't_ worked _once_." He looked up and met Hannibal's eyes. "When do we go?"

oo 0 oo

Step One of Hannibal's brilliant... though as yet untested... plan began with a diversion. It was a logical place to start, since there were several experts on the subject available; diversions had been a way of life for all of them at one time or another. For their first joint venture, it was felt that a little pathos and vulnerability would best further their immediate goals. What could be more harmless than a little old lady? Since they didn't have one of those readily available, though, they would have to make do with what they had on hand. They discovered that Newkirk still had a way of filling out a paisley dress that would turn heads at any convention of slightly nearsighted AARP members. And Face, with his powers of persuasion and distraction so well-honed, had been lucky enough to draw escort duty. As he and Newkirk strolled along the sidewalk that led past the front gate of Hochstetter's villa, Face realized that he had never thought so seriously about going AWOL in his life.

"Willya come on?" he urged. "We haven't got all day!"

"I'm supposed to be an old lady," Newkirk snapped, maintaining his slow, slightly hobbling gait. That part was easy; the stiff narrow shoes pinched his feet with every step. "You want me to race you down the block? Oh, that'll look real convincin', that will."

"Okay, I can see the house now, and the guard at the front gate." Face put an arm around Newkirk's back as they walked along.

"Peck?"

"What is it _now_?"

"It's up to you... either you can get your hands off, or not only will you never pick another lock in your lifetime, you'll set yourself a challenge just dialin' a telephone!"

Face snapped his arms back at his sides. "_B.A_. would make a more convincing little old lady than you do!"

"And I'll tell him you said that just as soon as we get back to the hotel." Newkirk yanked his shawl back into place and straightened his wire-rimmed glasses and the gray wig with attached pillbox hat. "Let's get this over with."

Luck, of a fashion, _was _with Face today... the guard at the gate of the villa was a quite attractive young blonde woman. "Good morning," he smiled, not finding it in the least bit difficult. "Nice day, isn't it?" She didn't say anything or even really give him much of an indication that she had heard him, but that had never stopped Face before and it wasn't going to stop him now. "Yeah, this is the life. My grandmother here hasn't been well… I'm sure you can see that by looking at her… she's really enjoying the warm weather."

When the two of them had proceeded another fifty feet past the pretty young guard, Newkirk stepped on Face's Italian leather loafer with the blunt heel of his orthopedic shoe. "Quit your improvisin'! We're supposed to be _mother _and _son._"

"Oh, come on, who's going to believe that? Look at us! Just shut up and take your dive!"

Newkirk swooned on request, a bit too melodramatically for his partner's liking. Face momentarily considered not catching him, but the mission won out over personal feelings. "Granny! Granny, what's the matter?"

"Oh, I'll be all right, Norman..."

_Norman_...? Face mouthed. Couldn't he have a cooler name than _Norman_? He half-led, half-dragged Newkirk, who had coquettishly begun fanning himself with the fingers of his right hand, to a seat on the low garden wall that framed the entrance. "Sit right down here, Granny; rest yourself a minute." Newkirk coughed a few times; Face didn't think that was part of the act. "And Granny, if I were you, I'd cut down to two packs a day. Try filter-tips."

"_Quiet_! That bird's on her way over!"

The attractive young guard had left her post... that was going to get her in big trouble if anybody from the other side found out about it, but she was aces with _this _side so far. In fact, she was the first thing the two of them had actually agreed on to this point. Face hoped she hadn't noticed that the 'old lady' was giving her a very un-ladylike once-over across the rims of his spectacles. Would this day _never _be over?

"Are you all right, Madam?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, dear, I'll be fine..." The falsetto didn't sound all that convincing to Face, but the young woman seemed to be buying it hook line and sinker. Behind her, Newkirk could see Kinch and Murdock slipping up close to the house for the recon part of the job. Now all he and Peck had to do was keep this girl's attention until they were in the clear and pray there weren't more guards for them to run into. "My, you're a pretty young thing…makes me wish I'd brought my _good-looking_ grandson with me today... sorry, child; this one isn't much to look at, is he? Wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if he weren't losing his hair."

The girl, for the first time, looked at Face... who remembered to paste one of his famous smiles on just in the nick of time. _Losing his hair? _The _nerve _of the man! "I think your grandson is very handsome," she said.

"Well, there's no accounting for taste... may want to have your eyes checked one of these days, dearie. Hope your insurance covers corrective lenses."

Face put a caring, supportive... _tight_... hand on Newkirk's left shoulder. There seemed to be no way to shut this guy up once he got rolling. "Now, Granny... don't you go matchmaking again," he said with a nervous grin.

"If I don't do it, Norman, who will? You'll just stay at home reading and working on your taxidermy, you'll never meet a nice girl like this one." He heaved a wistful sigh. "No, they never come by the old motel anymore, not since they put in the new bypass... nobody takes the back roads nowadays."

_Psycho_. They were supposed to be doing a simple, textbook diversion and Newkirk was reading through the synopsis of _Psycho_! There was improvising, and then there was _improvising_. Running a con with Murdock and his unpredictable coterie of invisible friends was less trouble, and Face hadn't thought he'd ever be tempted to say that. Yes, he'd like to tie Mrs. Bates here to a rocking chair, stick her in the cellar and turn the lights out for about twenty years... that's _exactly_ what he'd like to do.

"Looks like they've got the guard occupied," Murdock told Kinch as they paused behind a hedge.

"Yeah." But when they had used the word 'guard' in their planning earlier, none of them had pictured one like the young woman who turned out to be on duty. Looked like Women's Liberation had hit the refugee Nazi population down here, big time. "I sure hope Newkirk remembers he's supposed to be an old lady."

"Face'll remind him. He might be walkin' with a _real _limp by the time they get back." Murdock gestured towards the building with the handgun he held. "Come on; let's try the side window."


	9. Chapter 9

Carter turned the metallic component over and over in his hands. It was no bigger than a deck of cards. "No kiddin'?" he asked B.A. for what had to be the third time. "Totally wireless?"

B.A. nodded as he fiddled with another couple of items from his box of tricks. "That's right." Despite the heavy rings that crowded together on his thick fingers, he could handle a tiny jeweler's screwdriver with the precision of a neurosurgeon. The coffee table of the A-Team's hotel suite was his operating table. And Carter, whether B.A. liked it or not, was his overly enthusiastic scrub nurse.

He examined the unit more closely, his eyes taking in every minute detail. "Concussion fuse, timer, _and_ remote detonation?"

"Whatever you want. There's three ways to set 'em." B.A. showed him where the switch was located. "Right here."

"What's your typical remote activation range on something like this?"

B.A. shrugged a muscular shoulder, going back to the work in his hands. "Five hundred yards, give or take."

Carter whistled. "Boy… isn't that something? We sure could've used a unit like this back in Germany. When we went out to blow up a supply train it took three or four of us just to _carry_ the stuff… we had to take along a plunger box about yea big that weighed over twenty pounds, all the dynamite, plus the detonator caps, and these huge coils of wire… we needed at _least_ a few hundred feet, sometimes more if we had to rig a whole bridge, and wire's heavier than you'd think if you need to carry a whole lot of it, even if it's only thirty-gauge or so, insulated, which was the usual stuff we had on hand. You need a coil the size of a spare tire, minimum, to do a short length of track or a fuel depot or something like that. Any less than that and you're too close when the dynamite goes off, you know? And some of those sabotage jobs we had to do were two, three miles from camp… that was a lot of walking, I can tell you, carrying all that stuff through the woods in the middle of the night. We used to…"

B.A. raised his head slowly and looked directly at Carter for several seconds. "You sure talk a lot."

"Yeah, I know. I get told that pretty often. There was one time, one of my uncles was staying with us… he came all the way from North Dakota to spend Christmas with us one year… and actually he wasn't really my uncle; he was my dad's best friend from high school and I just always called him 'Uncle Dave'. He used to say I talked a lot. In fact, I remember once…"

B.A. gave a low grumble, shook his head and lowered his eyes to once again focus on his work, while Carter continued his story blissfully unaware that nobody was really listening.

Nearby, Hogan and Hannibal waited. Sometimes that was the hardest part of an operation. "If he's risking his life over there with Baracus I can probably get him to take a walk," Hogan said. "Send him to the corner for a paper… maybe a corner across the border in Uruguay; tell him to take his time getting back?"

Hannibal shook his head. "If B.A. were bothered, we'd know it by now. I think he's actually pleased that someone's showing such an interest in what he's doing. Fusing explosives isn't usually such a spectator sport around here; the rest of us have seen him do it a hundred times. Kind of old hat. Gets boring after a while."

"Nothing to do with explosives will _ever_ bore Carter."

Hannibal touched a match to the tip of a cigar. "I can't help thinking… this guy Hochstetter can't have been much of an officer to let that whole operation of yours get by him. From what I heard your tunnel system was something to rival the New York City subway, minus the trains and the muggers. And he couldn't find it? What kind of a bozo are we talking about here?"

"Oh, he was sure we had something going at Stalag 13. I mean _really _sure. He could almost smell it. And he almost rolled us a couple times... he never knew how close he really got. One time a Gestapo informant convinced one of my men she needed help getting out of Germany and he brought her back with him through the tunnel... she saw the whole system, our entire operation, and next thing you know she's walking out the front door of the barracks on her way to tell Hochstetter all about it in the camp kommandant's office."

Hannibal nodded. "A _pretty_ informant, I'm assuming?"

"How'd you guess?" But no need to go into any more detail; there was a part of Newkirk that still hadn't lived that one down. That was probably the closest they'd ever come to going out of business. "We had to blow everything from the barracks entrance to the main junction. Hochstetter sent in some of his goons with shovels, and you know what... if he'd just been a little luckier, he probably would have uncovered the whole thing. There was a _lot _to find."

LeBeau came out of the kitchen with a plate of finger food and held it out to the two of them. "Would you like a little something to hold you over until dinner?"

"Aren't you supposed to be taking it easy?" Hogan reminded him.

"I can't help it… when I get nervous, I have to cook something. You remember."

LeBeau did not like to be _labeled _a cook, or even worse, thought of as '_only' _a cook. He _was_ an excellent one, probably the best one Hogan had ever known. But he did prefer to select his moment to reveal that particular talent… no doubt the _artiste _in him. Well, it would keep him pleasantly occupied, and at the moment there was nothing of a more strenuous nature that he should be doing so soon after the explosion. No point in belaboring the issue. "Okay. Thanks, Louis."

Hannibal eyed the array of tempting items on the plate. "You made those with what you found in _our _kitchen?"

"In wartime you learn to make do. I once barbecued K-rations as a special request."

"LeBeau can make Ritz crackers and sardines into a five-star attraction," Hogan assured him as he selected an hors d'oeuvre.

"It's kind of you to say so, _Colonel_… and in fact, that's about all I had to work with here."

Hannibal sampled one as well. "Hey… that's _really_ good."

"Thank you, sir. There's fresh coffee on too; it'll be ready in a few minutes."

"You're looking at the most valuable member of my organization," Hogan told Hannibal with a grin.

"I can see why."

"If he'd ever escaped, we would have _all _had to go."

LeBeau moved to offer something to B.A. and Carter; B.A. obviously wasn't too sure what to make of the fancy spread but was hungry enough to give it a try, and looked pleasantly surprised when he tasted one.

Hannibal went back to the original subject. "The thing that I don't get is, if Hochstetter was so sure you actually _had _an operation of that magnitude, how come he never wrung it out of you?"

"He tried. More than once. But Hochstetter's Achilles heel was that what he really wanted was to catch us in the act, red-handed. Reports of sabotage in our part of Germany would uptick so high that sometimes we had to lay low for a while just to get the heat off us and onto another area. And he was always waiting when we started up again, with his extra goons and his mobile radio detection units. A game of cat-and-mouse on a big scale."

"So how is it that he never caught you?"

Hogan shrugged. "I won't say that luck didn't figure into it as well, but it was mostly due to his huge Nazi ego. Tactically, the thing to do would have been to line the five of us up facing the wire, _bang bang_, we all fall down, 'shot while trying to escape', and then just sit and wait to see if sabotage declined in the area... which it _would_ have. Next thing you know, _Colonel _Hochstetter would have had a nice corner office in Berlin with hot and cold running secretaries. And if he'd been wrong about us, so what? He executed hostages and prisoners all the time. It didn't bother him. But he didn't want to play it that way, and it cost him."

"I'd think the camp kommandant would have had something to say about that."

"Old Blood and Guts? You know those TV commercials for paper towels; one dissolves when you hold it under the faucet and the name brand doesn't? Klink was the rival brand. Afraid of his own shadow… and that's one of the _nicer _things I can say about him. Very unlikely to say anything at all to the Gestapo except 'yes sir'. He was proud of his no-escapes record, but that wouldn't have impacted it... our bodies would have been all his for burying; the Gestapo wasn't going to help him with _that. _Escapes don't count unless you actually get away."

"This is actually all starting to make a strange kind of sense."

"On top of all that, LeBeau and Newkirk can _both _tell you a little something about Hochstetter's 'interrogation techniques', first-hand. We _lost_ some good people, too… and _almost _lost a lot more. If you think all we want is to look Hochstetter in the eye and make real sure he knows _we're_ responsible for shutting him down... you're right."

This _was_ about pride, and Hannibal got that. He himself had been willing to go out of his way more than a time or two to make sure somebody special got the message. Now he actually thought he was beginning to understand the way Hogan's mind worked. They indeed had more than a few things in common.

There was a knock on the door of the suite. Three longs, three shorts. The signal. B.A. nodded and went to open up. Face and Newkirk entered, and immediately headed in opposite directions once they were inside the living room. "Do we get any kind of a report?" Hannibal asked.

"I am _never _going _anywhere _with _that _man again!" Face replied, jabbing an accusatory finger at Newkirk.

"I was hoping for a little more detail."

"What took so long?" Hogan asked. "Did you get lost?"

"How could we get lost? Newkirk left us a long trail of dropped _h's_ to follow back to base. Better than bread crumbs; the birds don't go for them."

Newkirk propped his left foot up on the ottoman, yanked the hem of his dress above his knee and began to untie his shoe, making Face grimace and slap a hand across his eyes. "What are _you _on about, Peck? I just walked three blocks with me garter belt snapped! If you think it ain't 'ard to..."

"Yep, there goes another one." Face kicked aside an imaginary item on the floor. "We'll be ankle-deep in them pretty soon."

"I hate to interrupt your rant, Professor Higgins," Hannibal interjected, "but did Murdock and Kinchloe make it inside all right with those miniature microphones?"

"Oh, they're just fine. _I _almost went _with _them!"

"Well, don't let _me _stop you!" Newkirk shot back.

Hogan pressed on doggedly. "Anything else to report?"

Face stabbed at his own chest with his thumb. "Are you asking _me_? Why not ask the Artful Codger; he's so sure he knows everything!"

"I don't know why I didn't suggest it in the first place," Hannibal said to Hogan. "No doubt about it; our two units work great together."

Hogan nodded. "Just like the Hatfields and the McCoys."

oo 0 oo

Kinch figured he had always been pretty calm and collected, even in the face of danger. It was one of his strong points, and a big reason why he had been the unofficial 'second in command' of the Stalag 13 operation. He was level-headed. Even-keeled. But before today, he had never infiltrated enemy territory with a man who insisted on humming the theme from _Mission: Impossible _under his breath as they made their way further and further into the villa. And he was finding that it made a difference in his temperament.

"Hey, Murdock?" he whispered through clenched teeth when they paused at the end of a corridor.

"Ten-four, good buddy; I read you loud and clear." That wasn't surprising; the two of them were literally shoulder to shoulder.

"You think you could knock off the musical track until this is over with?"

Murdock looked perplexed. "I don't hear nothin'."

Kinch took a steadying breath. Never argue with a man whose t-shirt read _'You're Fine; How Am I?'_ "Neither do I, now."

"When you start hearin' the voices, you lemme know… might be a friend of mine, and I can introduce you."

"Right…" The only voice Kinch could hear at the moment was his own, telling him that he'd be lucky to get out of here with his skin intact. The dozen miniature microphones he carried in his pocket felt like twice as many when he thought of how long it would take to position and activate each and every one of them, all in different parts of the big house, without being seen, all the while joined at the hip to a cross between an FM receiver and a network color commentator. And this was supposed to be a _good _idea? Hadn't they been better off when they and the A-Team _hadn't _been on the same side? Maybe they _all _belonged in the nut hatch.


	10. Chapter 10

A little more than two hours later, after both teams had reported back and no major wrinkles had developed in the fabric of Hannibal Smith's latest plan... at least not yet... the nine men sat in the living room of the A-Team's suite, making short work of LeBeau's latest collection of appetizers and listening to the nearly crystal-clear reception from Murdock and Kinch's bugs.

"Clear as a bell, and totally wireless..." Kinch nodded, clearly pleased. "Well, I'll be."

"You should see what they can do with detonation packs," Carter told him. "You could fit enough to wipe out a whole supply depot in your pants pocket, and still take out a railroad bridge on your way home. Technology has really improved since the forties."

"Maybe we should enlist for the next war."

"I'll pass, thanks," Newkirk put in. "But do drop me a postcard."

The boxy receiver had a little less style than their old coffee pot, maybe, but then again their percolator with the red light on the base and the speaker in the filter basket had never been able to pick up from a dozen different transmitters. When B.A. flipped a toggle switch, the input changed from room to room. Nothing going on in the main salon. Nothing in the garden. But in Hochstetter's office, a voice was coming through the microphone loud and clear. So loud, in fact, that B.A. reached to turn the volume down.

"Hear the difference?" Hogan asked Hannibal.

"I take it that's the real thing."

Murdock knocked his left ear with the heel of his hand. "Man, _that_ is _painful_... let's go back and take that one out, Kinch; the one thirty feet down the hall can cover."

"We could probably hear him fine if we just opened the window."

"_Why am I only hearing of this __now_?" the major's voice roared.

"_We... we wanted to be certain, Herr Major..." _The softer... _much _softer... voice of the other person in the office with him was barely audible. "_Before disturbing you..._"

"_I find the fact that one of my aides has disappeared __extremely__ disturbing, Rutger! How long does it take you to discover that a __man__ has __vanished__? You check all the dresser drawers and behind the sofa cushions before you make such a report, ja?_"

"I like a thorough search," Hogan nodded.

"_In case it has escaped your notice, Rutger, Rudolf was meant to be the __bait__... if the bait is gone, the trap has sprung, and I must leave this place before whoever it was that took Rudolf comes back for __me__!"_

"Not good..." Hannibal shook his head. "Just exactly what we _don't _want."

"_I want my car prepared and ready to depart by ten o'clock tonight! I will accept no excuses! You will ensure that my bags are packed and in the trunk of that car, or __you_ _will be in the trunk of that car, Rutger! You think that would be a pleasant way to travel?"_

"_No... no, Herr Major..."_

_"Then if you do not wish to find out, you do as I say and you do it __quickly__! You will also arrange to transport the gold; I do not know how long I will be away from Buenos Aires."_

Face's ears had no trouble picking up on _that _word. "Gold...?" he repeated eagerly.

"Ex-Nazis don't carry their bankroll in their wallets," Hannibal said. "They're not interested in the stuff that folds; they want something a little more substantial. Currencies can collapse; other commodities don't."

"Like gold." That was one of Face's favorite words; he didn't mind saying it again. "You think we might be able to pick up a bonus on this job, Hannibal? I wonder how much he's talking about."

"While you're busy wondering that, Face, you might also take a minute to wonder who it rightfully belongs to," Hannibal reminded him.

"That's right," Hogan nodded. "Whatever he was getting paid in the Gestapo, I guarantee you it didn't come in that kind of currency. That had to come from somewhere... or some_one_... else. One of the occupied countries, most likely. Banks in Poland or France."

"Haven't we got our hands full with the one kidnappin'?" Newkirk asked. "Here we are talkin' about gold and we don't even have the major yet."

"Spoilsport," Face grumbled.

"I like to keep our options open," Hannibal said. "If we get the chance to liberate the gold as well as box up the major, we'll see what we can do. I always hate to leave a mess behind; we should clean up as well as we possibly can."

"That's the best idea I've heard all day," his lieutenant said with satisfaction. "You can put me in charge of that part of the plan, Hannibal; I'll give it everything I've got."

"Oh, I know you will... but that's _not _what we came down here for, and we _are _going to make sure we've got the major sewn up before we start getting greedy."

"'Greed' is a word that's often over-used..."

"Okay, substitute 'avarice' if you like. But we're still concentrating on the major first."

Hogan liked the sound of that. "If he's planning to take off in that limo, he'll need a driver."

"Right."

"What if we helped him out and found one for him... I mean, since he's already short-handed?"

Hannibal grinned. "You think he hasn't got one on staff already?"

"I think he'll like ours better."

"I think you're right."

oo 0 oo

Both the switch and the splice that had been placed on the garage alarm were still in place and functioning. B.A. preferred to use the switch; he deactivated the alarm and climbed in through the window as Hannibal had done the night he'd planted the tracking device under the hood of the limo. This time he was after something a little larger. He waited in the dark for the main door to open and the liveried driver to enter. It was nine o'clock; they had one hour. The driver had a little less. As soon as he opened the left-hand door of the limo to get behind the wheel, B.A. came up behind him and swiftly and almost silently took him out of commission. There _was_ a slight clank of gold chains, but only B.A. was conscious to hear it. When he gave a hushed call of "get in here, fool!" towards the open window, Face climbed in to join him.

"I ordered a forty regular," he muttered as he knelt to help Baracus undress the driver. "The sleeves'll be too long."

"You want me to stretch your arms out for you?" B.A. growled.

"Uh, no... that's okay; I'll manage."

"Thought so."

Once again, he was stuck with the rotten part of the operation, Face sulked. He discarded his own dark blue pullover and started to don the driver's button-down shirt. Why him? There was always a reason, or an excuse, and this time it had been that they couldn't take the chance of Hochstetter recognizing one of Hogan's men at the last second. Otherwise, it could be Carter in here right now, lucky enough to be getting undressed in the dark and putting on someone else's clothes that smelled like cheap aftershave... but no; let's get _Face_ to do it. And then he had to go back into the house and meet up with Hannibal and the rest... nothing to it, just walk through the house like he belonged there, a house loaded with paranoid Nazis ready to shoot first and ask questions later. And somewhere around here there was a fortune in gold that nobody was even _looking _for. Where was the justice in that?

"You gonna move faster or am I gonna have to help you?" B.A. demanded. "You ain't gonna like it if I have to help you!"

"I'm moving!"

He'd been right; it was a bad fit. The cap wasn't right either; it slid down a little too far over his forehead. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing; it would keep his face out of sight a little better. "How do I look?" he asked B.A.

"Like a fool dressed up as a driver. Now come on!"

He sighed. "I had to ask..." He took a quick look in the side mirror of the limousine… then took the cap off and brushed the front of his meticulously blow-dried blond hair off his forehead with his right hand and held it, taking a closer look. He was _not _losing his hair… _was _he?

"_Move_ it, Face!"

"I'm coming, I'm _coming_!"

oo 0 oo

He rejoined LeBeau and Newkirk, one-half of the rest of the inside team, at the end of the hall where Hochstetter's office was located. One change from Kinch's and Murdock's earlier trip into the house: the office door was now locked.

There was just one problem with the lock, and it wasn't the standard problem one might expect: _two_ men suddenly brandished lockpicks in their hands; just like a quick-draw in a Western movie, without the _bang_.

"I'll flip you for it," Newkirk offered.

"With what; your two-headed coin? You're a cheap, pathetic excuse for a burglar." Face pointed down the hall. "Hey, did you just hear something down there?"

Newkirk raised his gun and turned to look… that was all the time Face needed to edge him out of the way, drop to his knees in front of the lock and insert his own pick. "Oh, _I'm _cheap and pathetic, am I?" Newkirk hissed when he realized he'd been bested, giving Peck an answering jostle in return.

"If the orthopedic shoe fits, _Granny_..." Face was still in a foul mood from the forced quick-change in the garage and there was no more appealing target for his wrath than the chronically-annoying Englishman... he was even kind of glad Newkirk was _there, _for a change; at least this time he had a use for him. Face turned his attention to the lock… it wasn't the most elaborate one he'd ever had to pop, a standard pin tumbler set-up, but it wasn't exactly a luggage clasp either. It took concentration, keen hearing, sensitive fingers… skills he'd been honing to a fine edge ever since his misspent youth. He knew exactly what he was doing.

"You see this here dial, Louis?" Newkirk's voice came over his right shoulder. "This is called a 'chronograph'… you don't see this on just _any_ watch, but sometimes they have 'em on the posh ones."

"Do _not _break my _watch_…" Face squeezed out between his clenched teeth. _Damn… _he'd swiped it _again. _But if Newkirk thought he was going to abandon the lock, he was crazy.

"Really? What does it do?" LeBeau asked conversationally, playing along with the game.

"Well, it's just a fancy word for a timer, that's all," Newkirk continued casually, as if he were presenting an informal seminar on personal timepieces. "Clocks to a fraction of a second, with marvelous accuracy. Only problem is, what we'll need to time _this_ job is an _hourglass_."

Face felt his hand start to shake just enough to make the pick slip off the first pin, short of the shear point. _Steady there, fella… he's trying to rattle you… don't give him the satisfaction… _On his second try he felt the pin click into place; that was followed by the next pin, and the next. When the fifth one slid into position, the knob turned and the door opened. Nothing wrong with _that _time.

Newkirk buffed the watch crystal on his sleeve before tossing the Rolex back to Face. "You looked almost like you knew what you were doin' for a moment there."

"Thanks; I'll cherish that."

Empty and dark, the office appeared cavernous. The three of them were barely inside when Hogan and Hannibal joined them from the corridor. LeBeau shone his flashlight over the row of file cabinets in the back of the room. "This looks like the public library of the Second World War."

"We've heard the story and we know how it ends, remember?" Hogan asked.

Newkirk, taking a cursory look at the cabinets himself, chuckled when he saw the one at the end of the row. "I should think you'll want to have a look at _this_, sir."

Four heavy shoulder-high five-drawer units stood side by side. The index card mounted in the bracket on the first one read 1937-1940, the second one was labeled 1941-1943, the third 1944-1945. The fourth cabinet had no dates on the label. There was just one five-letter word to describe its contents.

_HOGAN_.

Hogan couldn't contain a short burst of laughter. "Well, well, well… a whole file cabinet just for little old _us_?"

It was locked, of course, but Newkirk resolved that in short order and pulled open the middle drawer with some difficulty to find that it was literally _packed_. Not one additional sheet of paper, envelope or folder could possibly have been wedged in there without bursting the dovetails in the ends of the wooden drawer, and it stood to reason that the other four probably looked about the same. Countless documents, maps, and dog-eared corners of photographs poked out of the compacted hodge-podge. "Blimey; never threw anythin' away, did he?"

"Looks like you were a full-time job for this guy," Hannibal observed. "I've heard of obsessions, but this runs a little outside the margins."

"What would he even _want _with all this?" LeBeau wanted to know. "Why keep it in the first place?"

"You know Hochstetter," Hogan said. "If there were no such thing as obsessive compulsion, he wouldn't have a personality at all."

He didn't seem interested in taking a closer look; just moved away to the window to take a glance towards the garage to make sure the coast remained clear. Hannibal, though, was a little more on the curious side. He couldn't resist taking hold of the protruding edge of a curling eight-by-ten photograph and leveraging it out of the drawer.

It was a color photo of Hogan and his men… the rudimentary color processes of the mid-1940's had faded somewhat, but not entirely. And it was a "candid" shot… that was a nice way of saying it probably had been taken without their knowledge from some distance, a clandestine addition to the Gestapo's gallery of suspects.

They stood in front of a ramshackle barracks, but the passage of time wasn't just evident in the setting, or the fading color of the photo. Hogan, dark hair combed to the side, wore a leather airman's jacket and cap with insignia; he had the military bearing of the officer he was, along with the rugged good looks of a matinee idol. Kinchloe wore his three-up/one-down on the sleeve of his uniform jacket and looked like he'd just stepped off the gridiron. There wasn't a crease on Newkirk's angular face; he stood trim and wiry in the royal-blue uniform of the RAF corporal he had once been. At his elbow, a youthful LeBeau sported a red beret with a _Croix de Lorraine _under the stripes on his sleeve, and Carter looked on with solemn concentration, hands wedged firmly in the pockets of the sheepskin jacket with the Air Force emblem on the shoulder.

It was like looking at a page from a history book, or a still from an old movie that you couldn't quite recall having seen; something so far in the past that it was no longer clear in your memory. But Hannibal knew those men. They were more than a footnote to military history served up to the honor students at West Point; these were men who had fought hard and long against the worst the Third Reich had been able to throw at them, defied the odds, risked their lives, and willingly stayed behind as they helped scores of others escape from the confines of Luft Stalag Thirteen. Five men who had voluntarily spent some of the best years of their youth behind barbed wire, watching others go free. That kind of man didn't come along all that often; here were five of them all in the same place.

Hannibal found himself wishing he'd been just a few years older when the United States had entered that war. He would have considered it an honor to be in that picture with them.

"How are we doing for time?" Hogan asked from the window.

Face checked his watch... might as well; at the moment he _was_ wearing it. "I've got twenty-one twenty hours."

"Time you were in position, then," said Hannibal. "Get the car and get it into position at the head of the driveway near the front door, where you'll be picking up your passenger. B.A. will still be by the garage if you run into any trouble there. _Try _not to run into any trouble... it would be a lot better to do this quietly."

No kidding. "I'll see what I can do."

"Then you stop the car at the _end _of the driveway, where Hogan and I will join you."

"And if he gives me any trouble between the head of the driveway and the end...?"

"Use your initiative."

"Terrific."

"Carter and Murdock will be in the area standing by. There's one of B.A.'s bugs in the limo. If they hear you run into trouble, they're armed and they'll move on your position. What can happen in a hundred feet?"

"I get the terrible feeling I might be just about to find out, with a rabid Nazi in the back seat."

"Face, you worry too much."

"_Someone _has to do it."


	11. Chapter 11

At twenty-two hundred hours on the dot, both according to Face's Rolex and also to Nazi precision, Wolfgang Hochstetter stepped outside the front door of his villa for what he hoped would not be the last time. A short vacation, that was all... a few weeks in the Mendoza region, where he had friends who operated a vineyard. It would be good to catch up with Hausermann again; they had not seen much of one another since the fall of Berlin.

"You would not prefer that I accompany you, _Herr Major_?" Rutger asked from the bottom step, sounding as if he already knew what the response was going to be but felt he should ask anyway.

"No, Rutger, I _prefer _that you remain behind and do your job for a change... I know it is asking a lot of you, but I am in hopes that you will find a way to manage it. The next time someone breaks into this house and spirits someone away in the night, I sincerely hope it is _you._"

It was all Rutger could do to manage to raise his arm in a half-hearted salute. _That sawed-off little tyrant_... fortunately he was fairly sure the major did not read minds... and then he reached to open the back seat of the door to the limousine. Hochstetter whacked him on the forearm with his cane and, thus discouraged, he backed away from the car and allowed the major to do it himself. The only exercise the old man got these days was carrying grudges; might as well let him. "I wish you a pleasant journey, _Herr Major_..."

The resounding _"Bah!" _he received in reply probably woke half the neighborhood. The very second the back door slammed shut, he focused his verbal firestorm on the back of his driver's head. "And what are _you_ waiting for?" he demanded with another strike of his cane on the back of the front seat. "_Drive_!"

"Drive..." Face muttered to himself. "Right..." He started the car, shifted into gear, and pulled swiftly away from the house and the towering figure of Rutger. Putting some space between himself and the aide was tops on his list of things to do.

A hundred feet had never seemed so much like a hundred miles, listening to Hochstetter rage to himself the whole way and occasionally give the seat back a solid strike with his cane, which once startled Face into engaging the windshield wipers. The long, curving drive seemed endless in the dark, with just the beam from the headlights cutting into it. Where were Carter and Murdock? If they _were_ stationed along here somewhere, they were well-hidden. Or maybe it was one of those feel-good claims of Hannibal's, like when he said something would be 'no problem' or a 'piece of cake', and maybe Murdock and Carter weren't out there at all; maybe they were sitting in the back of the jeep in the parking garage at the hotel playing pinochle. If he was going to be killed, Face wished it could at least be while he was wearing clothes that fit properly.

At last, the end of the driveway was in sight. Face stopped the car as planned, and looked carefully up and down the boulevard as if waiting for his moment to pull into traffic. Unfortunately, at ten o'clock on a Monday night, there wasn't much traffic to speak of, and not much reason to be sitting there. That fact penetrated the major's self-involved rant after a half-minute of sitting idle. "Why have we stopped?" he demanded.

"Just... checking to make sure we have enough gas, Major..." Face deferred.

"_Why_ must I be surrounded by _idiots_? You do not make this kind of a check before you begin to..."

Face's heart began beating again when he saw a flash of motion in the corner of his right eye and heard the back door open. In another split second the left-hand door was opened as well, and he felt the suspension of the big car give slightly as about a hundred and eighty pounds was added to each side of the rear seat. "Home, James," Hannibal's welcome voice reached his ear.

Face pressed down on the accelerator as both rear doors slammed shut, and he pulled onto the boulevard headed north. "I thought you'd never ask."

"_What is the meaning of this?_" Hochstetter roared. Face pushed the button on the dashboard that illuminated the rear seat. Hochstetter squinted in the sudden brightness, looked into the smiling face of Hannibal Smith, and then straight down the barrel of the 9mm automatic that he held. "Who _is_ this man?"

"My name's Hannibal Smith. We'll have time to get acquainted later on, Major. But there's someone here you _do _know."

Hochstetter turned in his seat, and froze when he saw who was sitting next to him. "No... _no_, it _can't_ be..."

"_Guten Abend, _Major," Hogan said cheerfully. "Long time no see. How've you been?"

"_Hogan!_" The mere sight of that name on a file cabinet was enough to reactivate his ulcer; to see the man sitting right beside him was practically enough to burst a blood vessel. "_No_!"

Hogan lost the goading smile. "You're on your way to a war crimes tribunal, and you've got me and my men to thank for it. We want you to remember that when you're sitting in a cell trying to remember what the light of day looks like. 'Cause you're gonna be gone a long, _long _time."

With the major thus distracted, Hannibal withdrew a syringe from his breast pocket and popped the protective plastic cap off. "Nighty-night, Major." He was an expert at this, having drugged B.A. for a flight too many times to remember. The needle found its mark almost painlessly, and moments later Hochstetter was slumped unconscious in the seat between the two colonels. "That should hold him for a few hours."

"I hope you've got more of that stuff."

"Of course. Never travel without it." He re-capped the needle and replaced it in his pocket. "This guy's a real big fan of yours, I see."

"Oh, definitely. I fall somewhere between the Russians and General Eisenhower on his list of golden war memories."

"Well..." Hannibal sat back in the plush leather seat. "Now we can relax. B.A. will radio the others to move out of the compound, they'll meet us back at the hotel, and then it's just a short hop to the airport from there. Our favorite Nazi goes back to the States on A-Team Airlines, no questions asked, and you guys can go home with a great story to tell. Your men held up your end of the operation; no doubt about it."

That, Hogan knew, was probably the luckiest break of all. Without Bruno and his Underground connections, his own unit had no way of processing Hochstetter. This was an aspect of the operation he was only too glad to leave in the capable hands of Hannibal Smith. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad it's over."

"What are you going to do now?"

"Are you kidding? I'm gonna sleep for a week. I'm not gonna lie about that _either_."

Hannibal grinned. "Pleasant dreams."

"I think that's almost guaranteed."

oo 0 oo

The farthest corner of the underground parking garage had been selected as the rendezvous point. Kinch was already there and waiting, and B.A. jogged up before Face had put the limo into park, one hand holding his chains against his chest to cut down on the noise. Hogan looked beyond him to see Newkirk and LeBeau on their way down the ramp as well; LeBeau was in the lead and kept turning around to make sure Newkirk was still following him. Newkirk gave the impression that he didn't usually run much anymore, and would have preferred not to be doing it now. Finally LeBeau grabbed a handful of his sleeve and resorted to pulling him along.

"Stop draggin' me, Louis; I'm not a ruddy shoppin' cart!"

"I'll stop dragging you when this is all over... now _vite, allons-y_!"

Newkirk found the hood of the limo a convenient place to collapse while he caught his breath; he folded his arms and rested his forehead on them. "That's it..." he gasped. "I've had it… I'm done in..." Face tapped the horn, and he jumped halfway out of his skin. "Bloody _hell...!"_

"Sorry..." Face called out insincerely. "My hand slipped..."

"I'll have it out with you _later_, Peck... just as soon as there's only _one _of you again..."

"Maybe it's the altitude," LeBeau suggested.

"We're at sea level," Hogan reminded him.

"Then it's the smoking." He brushed his two index fingers together in front of Newkirk's face, which wasn't yet back to its normal color. "Bad boy..."

"You're no longer in my will..." Newkirk wheezed.

The head count was still short, but when Murdock dashed halfway down the ramp, vaulted over the railing and executed a smooth two-point landing on the parking level with the solid _thwack_ of rubber-soled gym shoes on concrete, that made one more head. "My goal, one-two-three!" he called.

"What kept you?" Hannibal asked.

"Had to go all the way around the perimeter," Murdock replied, himself a little out of breath from running the extra distance. "Goons on the grounds... took a little longer than I thought… where's Carter?"

_Where's Carter_. Hogan said a quick prayer that the confidence he'd expressed earlier in his explosives expert was justified. Carter always tried hard, and nobody who knew him would argue with that, but he was the one you always worried about _first _when he was even a couple of minutes late getting back from a job. Sometimes he got lost, sometimes he fell down, sometimes he realized he'd forgotten something and had to go back for it, and then there was the time he'd stopped to befriend an escaped chimpanzee… "Carter…" Hogan murmured. "Come _on…_"

"He's probably just being careful," Kinch said. "Making sure nobody's following him. You know Carter."

Yes, he knew Carter. That was why his palms were starting to sweat. "The signal was to get out, _fast._"

"I'm sure he did, _Colonel_," LeBeau nodded. "He'll be here any minute. _Du calme_."

"Oh, no…"

Those were the two words Hogan least wanted to hear at that moment, but there they were, in Newkirk's voice, hanging in the air like a pall. When Hogan turned around, he didn't need any additional information to realize what had happened.

Newkirk had pulled Carter's sportcoat out of the back of the Team's jeep, where they'd all put their street clothes before changing into dark clothing for the operation, and he held it up with one hand, the earpiece of the hearing aid in the other. The amplifier was in the pocket of the jacket. The jacket was not on Carter. _Oh no _didn't begin to cover it.

"He _didn't_…" Hannibal began in disbelief. "Tell me he didn't…"

Hogan nodded. "He _did_. So he didn't hear the alert and he's still in there waiting."

"Waitin' to get himself killed," B.A. said gruffly. "He's a sittin' duck."

Newkirk stuffed the appliance into his own pocket and headed for the ramp. "I'll get him."

Hogan shook his head. "Newkirk, wait a minute."

No good; he just kept going. When that didn't work, Hannibal had a go. "Hold your position, Newkirk!"

"Simon says, stop!" Murdock tried.

"I don't care if all three of you _are _officers; not _one_ of you can gimme any orders, I been discharged since 1945!" Newkirk was right about that, of course, but B.A. still stood between him and the exit, and Sergeant Bosco Baracus wasn't much on verbal orders even on the rare occasions when he actually had the most stripes. B.A. could afford to be a man of few words. He stood like a telephone booth in the walkway, every bit as difficult to move aside, and glared at the Englishman wordlessly. "Out of my way, Baracus; I'm goin' to get Andrew!"

"You want to try settling that hothead of yours down before he gets hurt?" Hannibal asked Hogan. "And then we can figure out how we're going to get your man out of there… but every second he wastes here is one less we've got to work with."

"Newkirk," Hogan repeated firmly. "I know what you're trying to do but it isn't helping. This _isn't_ an order; it's just common sense... stand down and let's figure out what we're going to do before we lose Carter."

_Lose Carter_. There went that voice again, the one in Hogan's head that had had thirty-five years to think about the kind of work they were doing and should know better by now. Putting Hochstetter on the inside track to a war crimes tribunal wouldn't mean much, if the four of them ended up having to knock on a front door in Muncie holding Andrew's hearing aid and somehow try to explain to Mary Jane what had gone wrong. If they didn't _all _get out of this alive, there was no point in having done any of it in the first place, no matter what became of Hochstetter. Call it justice, call it revenge, call it whatever you liked... but losing a man would always be too high a price to pay for it.

oo 0 oo

For all the worry over him, Andrew was on duty, on the ball, and perfectly fine... if a little lonely. It seemed to be taking a little more time than they'd figured on to finish off the mission. He checked his watch again. Huh... almost ten-thirty. That was twenty-two-thirty in military time, he remembered. That had taken forever to learn, and then almost forever to forget. You could always tell a recently-discharged veteran when you asked him the time, and he either gave it to you in military terms or had to stop and think how to say it in regular Indiana hours and minutes.

There had been a lot of activity in the direction of the villa, but it was mostly over now. He had seen people coming and going in the glow of the overhead lights in the courtyard, but couldn't quite get near enough to see exactly what they were doing. And... well, he'd already figured out what he'd left behind in the pocket of his jacket, so he sure couldn't hear much, but as soon as he'd realized his mistake he'd put B.A.'s radio receiver right up close to his ear so he wouldn't miss the signal to withdraw... unless he _already_ had, and he hadn't yet had the chance to think that possibility through. That hadn't been very bright. Not as bad as the time he'd taken an entire roll of pictures of the pages of the brand-new code book they'd removed from Klink's safe and then realized he'd forgotten to put film in the camera, but pretty bad. Or the time he'd left the whole _camera _out by the wire after taking a series of photos of troop movements past the camp. He was always doing stuff like that, it seemed. Sometimes he wondered why Colonel Hogan hadn't had him shipped off to another stalag to make his own life easier.

In the same wooded area edging the front driveway, Murdock, Newkirk, Kinch and B.A. crept through the close cover of trees, staying low, and keeping their weapons at the ready. "How come you guys hang onto a goof-up like that anyway?" Murdock whispered over his shoulder as they moved along.

"I'll deal with you _later," _Newkirk promised.

"_Me? _What'd _I _do?"

"Nobody calls Carter names except Newkirk," Kinch advised him. "It's kind of an unwritten rule."

"And nobody threatens _my _fool except _me_!" B.A. clarified. "So shut up, Newkirk!"

"Thanks, B.A.," Murdock smiled.

"You shut up too, Murdock! One fool at a time, and we're still lookin' for _his_."

Murdock put on a pout. "Sticks and stones can break my bones..."

"And so can _I, _sucker!"

Kinch, beginning to feel like the fourth Marx Brother and wondering why he was even along for the ride, suddenly motioned for everyone to stop. "I think I see Carter up ahead."

"Now all we have to do is get his attention without him shootin' us by accident," Murdock nodded. "Leastways, that's how _I'd_ prefer to do it."

Before anyone could say either 'okay' or 'wait a minute', Newkirk was off the mark and heading towards the crouching figure in the bushes up ahead. He had had a lot of experience working with Carter, and he had no trouble making a decision about how to handle this situation... subtlety was not the way to go. Instead he walked up behind him, clamped his left hand down tight over Andrew's mouth and wrenched his gun out of his right hand in one smooth motion. Carter had time only for one muffled squawk and the briefest of struggles before he realized that the hand holding his right wrist in a vice grip looked really familiar. "_Nnkkk_?" was all he could manage to say behind the fingers that still held his mouth tightly shut.

"Close enough." Newkirk released him and stuffed the hearing aid into his ear with a force that nearly made it pop out the other side of Carter's head. "Now, you can either _wear _that, or _eat _it… you let me know which one appeals to you, and I'll take it from there."

"I... uh... missed the..."

"Signal," Newkirk nodded. "Right."

"So you came to..."

"Get you... yes."

"Um..."

"Andrew, do _not _ask me _why _right now; you won't like the answer, I promise you!"

Well, that was fair enough warning. "Okay..."

The other three members of the 'rescue team' joined them. "Can we get outta here now?" Murdock asked. "I feel a bad case of lead poisonin' comin' on if we get caught out here."

"Wait," Carter said.

"Wait for _what_?" demanded B.A. "I ain't gonna wait for nothin'!"

"There's one thing you guys might want to know..."

"Andrew, can't you tell us back at the hotel?" Kinch asked.

"Well, not really."

"I've had these conversations with 'im before... there's only one way to end 'em." Newkirk took a breath. "Four words, no more... what's so bloody important?"

"I found the gold."

Before they could ask for any more details, Carter gestured to the parking area behind the rear entrance to the villa. There indeed sat an armored car. The engine was running, and the driver was in the front seat.

Newkirk had to admit it, he was pleasantly surprised. "Well, what do you know about that..."

"Anybody know how to drive one of those things?" Kinch asked.

"If it's got wheels, I can drive it," B.A. affirmed.

"Gentlemen, I think our Christmas bonus has just arrived..." Murdock nodded. "Better late than never."


	12. Chapter 12

Three minutes later, the five of them were coming at the truck, and the driver, from three sides… slowly, stealthily, steadily. But not, in all cases, completely silently. "You ever seen the old silent flick, _The_ _Lonedale Operator_?" Murdock whispered to Carter.

"Gee, I don't think so."

"Some guys tried to stick up a train loaded with a minin' company payroll… 'course, those were the old days, before armored cars. Had a lotta style, though. They show pictures like that on Saturday nights back at the V.A. hospital. Back at our place, _everythin's _a talkie… and if you show the same picture twice, you get two different soundtracks. Sometimes three, if they're runnin' low on Thorazine."

"Are you really a nut? I mean, lunatic… I mean…" Carter's voice wound down into an awkward asymmetrical spiral before imploding. "Aw, heck, I don't know what I mean."

The next voice out of Murdock's mouth was a cross between Charlton Heston and Charles Laughton. "The moon is a giant Slurpee, and my elevator goes exactly six and seven-eighths of the way up to my top floor, which is also the basement and gets mighty wet durin' the monsoon season." To Carter's perplexed expression, he added, this time in his own voice, "Yeah, I'm completely whackdoodle. Don't let anybody tell you any different. I got papers and everythin'."

"Oh." Well, that cleared _that _up.

Kinch and Newkirk approached the truck from the front. It was their job to try to divert the driver if the truck were to start up and begin to pull out of the driveway before they'd made the hit, by any means possible... except getting themselves run down. Gold was nice, but it would never replace a good healthy upright posture. "What's Baracus plannin' to do?" Newkirk asked in hushed tones.

"You're asking _me_? He'll do anything he wants, and I can tell you right now that whatever it is, I plan on staying out of his way. I'm glad I never faced anything like _him _on the football field… I might have joined the intramural knitting team instead."

"Y'know, it's kind of odd… he ain't really all that _tall_ of a bloke, is he? But to _look_ at 'im, seems like…"

"Just be glad he's on our side. I _think_."

B.A. had positioned himself on the business side of the hoped-for transaction, also known as the driver's side door. He saw Newkirk and Kinch, barely visible in the farthest reaches of the truck's headlights, at the edge of the manicured shrubbery, keeping their heads down. Murdock and Carter should be approaching on the passenger side, but if they weren't in position he was fully prepared to go ahead without their help… those two put _together_ on a _good_ day barely made up one half-wit. It was now or never with the truck; it wasn't going to sit there all night. The driver had his head down and appeared to be doing some paperwork on a clipboard. The dome light was on and would make it almost impossible for him to see anyone approaching until they were right on top of him. B.A. stood up and sprinted toward the armored car.

"There he goes," Kinch relayed. "Whatever the plan is, this is it." He and Newkirk both stood up as well, and trained their pistols on the windshield.

B.A. took hold of the door handle and practically dislocated the hinge wrenching it open. "You're off-duty, sucker!" he informed the startled driver, grabbing him bodily and flinging him with almost no effort at all through midair into the nearby brush.

Murdock grinned widely when he heard both the threat and the resulting heavy crunch. "That's my best buddy."

By the time the other four had made it to the truck, B.A. was behind the wheel and yanking the shift lever into gear. He leaned over to unlock the passenger door from the inside before he took his foot off the brake. "Hurry it up or you'll be walkin'!" he called to the others.

Rutger and some other members of the household staff appeared at the back door just in time to get a spray of loose gravel spit up at them from the spinning drive wheels; they ducked and covered their heads. "Has Meinhoff lost his mind?" Rutger shouted.

His question was answered when he saw the driver stumble out of the bushes, battered but still ambulatory. "Those men!" he called back to Rutger. "There were eight of them! Perhaps nine! There was nothing I could do!"

"_After_ them!"

Not eight. Not nine. _Five_. And a good thing, too, because not even _five_ of them were a comfortable fit in the cab of the fleeing armored car. They were piled into the passenger seat like an armload of laundry that just happened to have men inside it. "Newkirk, get your elbow outta my ribs!" Kinch snapped.

"I will, when Carter gets _his _out of my eye!"

"You guys should've sent LeBeau," Carter cracked. "He's a lot smaller." Unlucky enough to be on the bottom, he squirmed uncomfortably. "Newkirk, don't take this the wrong way, but I think you could stand to lose some weight…"

"I almost _did_, earlier tonight, but then the Colonel made me come _get _you!"

Murdock had realized that the area immediately _behind_ the seat offered some room to travel in, if you were thin as a rail and weren't too fussy how you traveled, and he was stretched out like a cat on top of the long lockbox, tool kit and a few other sundry items that were stored in the rear of the cab. He didn't have much of a view, though… just the back of B.A.'s head. And the bump going over the curb and into the street at top speed sent him three inches in the air and back down again with a resounding thump. "Nice drivin', B.A.… but… _ouch_… for the love of soapbox derbies, wouldya _slow down_?"

A loud, abrupt, metallic _thunking _sound came at them from behind, and then they heard it again. "What's that?" Carter asked.

"They're shootin' at us!" B.A. answered as he checked the rear view mirror. "And they're _hittin' _us! You still want me to slow down, fool?"

"Pedal to the metal, big guy!" Murdock yelled at the top of his lungs.

Newkirk physically removed Carter's elbow from the area of his left kidney. "_You _had to find the ruddy _gold, didn't _you?"

Rutger fired one last volley in the direction of the rapidly-retreating taillights of the armored car and uttered a few words he almost never used. There was no way the thieves could be followed; there was nothing immediately available to follow them _in._ There wasn't even the slightest clue as to who they _were. _"What do we do now?" the battered driver asked, sounding justifiably afraid of the answer.

Well… there was only one thing _to _do. "I would suggest we go inside and activate the receiver for the tracking device in the armored car. And if I were you, Meinhoff, I would hope very fervently that it is operating adequately… if not, you will soon be wishing for your miserable life to be cut even shorter."

"What will you tell the major…?"

"Everything _you_ have to fear, Meinhoff, will be coming directly from _me_." He holstered his sidearm. "Inside."

oo 0 oo

Hogan checked his watch. A full four minutes since the last time he'd checked it. It was almost twenty past eleven now, and not a sign of any of the personnel who'd been sent out to look for Carter. "They ran into trouble," he told Hannibal.

"Maybe," Hannibal nodded calmly.

Hogan envied him that calm, but he also suspected it was a veneer. Smith cared every bit as much about his own men as Hogan did; he didn't have to say it in so many words. He was a good officer. And a good man. "I say we go after them."

"Me too," LeBeau agreed.

"It's starting to look that way, Hannibal," Face was forced to concur. "We don't have _much _firepower, but we've got _some_. We could split into two teams, one at the front and one at the back."

"We could. And maybe we will. But we need to give it a little more time. We can't _all_ go running off; not with the major in the limo. We have to consider the…"

The sudden sharp squeal of tires on the street level above made him look towards the ramp. That sounded like B.A.'s driving… but they'd gone out on foot; they wouldn't be coming back in a…

The armored car barreling down the entrance ramp sent them all scrambling for cover. It bottomed out when it hit the parking level, shooting sparks from the undercarriage, then skidded in a semi-circle and braked to an abrupt halt near the limousine. Before they could decide what to do about it, a very familiar voice greeted them from the passenger compartment behind the heavily-tinted windows.

"Anybody here order a fortune?" Murdock called.

oo 0 oo

A precise accounting would have taken more time than they had at the moment, but once they had accessed the cargo area of the armored vehicle, one thing was crystal clear.

"Well, helloooo, Dollars!" Face fairly glowed at the sight of the massive wooden crate filled with gold bars. "Someday I'll want to know how you did this, fellas, but right now I'd just like to sit next to it for a while and cuddle."

"Forget it," Hannibal instructed. "We need to get this, _and_ the major, to the air strip. Those guys at the villa aren't going to just let us drive away with this kind of a bankroll. They'll come looking for the truck, and when they find it I want us to be at least twenty thousand feet in the air above it."

"Ain't flyin', Hannibal," B.A. insisted as always.

"How are you gonna get home if you don't fly?" Carter asked.

"I'll _walk _before I _fly!_"

"You've made your point, Sergeant," Hannibal told him.

"Could you use a few extra hands getting everything on board?" Hogan asked. "We've come this far together; I guess we could manage one more evening of clandestine illegal activity for old times' sake. It's too late for dinner and a movie anyway."

"You're on. B.A., you handle the armored car. Face, you're in the jeep."

Peck's expression fell. "The _jeep_?"

"You scammed it; you can drive it."

"It's your color," Newkirk assured him. "Goes well with your wristwatch."

"We could use a good man behind the wheel in the limo," Hannibal told Hogan.

"Sounds like Kinch," Hogan nodded. "Okay with you, Kinch?"

"Sure thing, Colonel."

Hannibal nodded. "I'll go in the limo too, in case Hochstetter starts to come around, and Hogan, you might want to come as well… I don't think he _will_, yet, but I did go a little light on the shot since I wasn't sure about his weight. The rest of you, find a seat somewhere in this caravan and let's get this show on the road."

Faced with either a seat next to Baracus in the armored car or one next to Peck in a pink jeep, Newkirk considered his options as 'bad' and 'worse'. The armored car won the mental coin toss, and he clambered inside before anyone else could beat him to it. "You'll 'ardly know I'm 'ere," he assured Baracus as he pulled the heavy plated door shut. Baracus gave him a hard, brow-furrowed glare. "What?" A low growl began to rise from his throat. "Oh, all _right…_" He pulled the half-pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and tossed them out the window. "There... 'appy now?" The big man's expression never changed. What _would _Baracus actually look like if he were happy, Newkirk wondered, and how could anybody ever tell?

"It's dark out," Face reminded Carter and LeBeau as they both considered the pink jeep with less than enthusiastic expressions. "Nobody'll notice. I promise."

"I'll hold you to that," LeBeau nodded. "And if you get a ticket on the way to the airstrip, I never saw you before in my life… you picked me up hitchhiking, and I'm colorblind."

Murdock leaped in with total abandon, stood on the rear seat and took hold of the roll bar. "Onward, my very-extremely-pale-red chariot, onward!"

"He's really nuts, you know," Carter told Louis. "He told me so himself."

"Oh _really_? I would never have imagined such a thing." He gave Carter a push. "Go on, get in. Let's get this over with."


	13. Chapter 13

The airfield hadn't changed much. It certainly hadn't gotten any better-looking. The goats still milled around, foraging for a few mouthfuls of weeds. Just another day in Paradise.

The three vehicles had split up as soon they left the underground parking area, agreeing to travel separately to the airstrip rendezvous. It struck Face as ironic that, when he really thought about it for a minute, he was actually happier behind the wheel of that cotton-candy-colored embarrassment than he would have been in either the armored car or the limo, which both belonged to a bunch of very dangerous heavily-armed extremists. If anybody saw the jeep, so what? All they could do was laugh. If anybody saw the armored car, there'd be a firefight. Ditto with the limo, when they realized that it too had been commandeered… read 'stolen'... and with their boss still in the back seat, no less. No, the jeep suited Face just fine at the moment.

He was still relieved to reach the airfield. So was Murdock, who hopped out as soon as the vehicle came to a halt next to the bumpy runway and went to greet his old friend, still patiently rusting away on the crumbling asphalt. "Didja miss me?" he asked the battered cargo plane. "_I _missed _you._"

Before the plane had a chance to answer... and Face was afraid that, one day, one of the inanimate objects Murdock addressed _would _in fact answer him... the armored car appeared on the service road at the far end of the runway and headed toward the plane. "Well, there's B.A. and Newkirk... they made it. I expect Hannibal and Hogan will take the scenic route... since we've got heavy cargo to load."

Maybe Face was right. Maybe it was only a coincidence. But the limo pulled up just as they were finishing the offloading of the gold into the C-47. Lucky for all involved, the apparatus in the back of the armored car did most of the work; all that was required was a ramp and a little of B.A.'s muscle for guidance, and the hydraulic lift took it from there. Nobody, including Face, was eager to load that much gold by hand, one brick at a time.

But the gold wasn't what had Hannibal's attention as they drove onto the field. What he noticed was Murdock standing on a stepladder at the tip of the left wing, and he appeared to be trying to fix something. With duct tape.

"Captain," Hannibal called from the car, "what's the problem?"

"Oh, nothin' much." The pilot tore off another long strip of wide silver tape with his teeth and started winding it around the wing tip. "Just noticed a few rivets workin' loose, that's all."

"How many is 'a few'?"

"You know, a _few_... more'n a couple, less than a bunch. A _few._"

"I see." He shrugged when he noticed Hogan giving him a wary look. "It's only a _few_."

"Smith, I'd really hate to be your life insurance broker."

"How's the cargo situation, B.A.?"

"All loaded and ready to go, Hannibal."

"Not _quite _all... if you wouldn't mind loading up the major, we can start thinking about getting this bird in the air."

The big man nodded crisply. "I'll load the major, but when this plane goes up in the air it ain't gonna have _me _on it. You said a cruise ship, and I'm gonna hold you to it this time."

"B.A., have I ever let you down?"

That was barely worth a growl in reply. B.A. busied himself pulling the still-unconscious major out of the back seat of the limousine with as little care as possible, being careful to keep a certain amount of distance between himself and his colonel. He remembered exactly how Hochstetter had ended up like that, and he was determined that nothing like that was going to happen to _him _again any time soon. _Had _Hannibal ever let him down? You bet.

Newkirk turned to Face. "What's B.A. stand for, anyway?"

"Bad Attitude."

The Englishman shook his head slowly. "Shockin'."

"So I guess this is it," Hannibal told Hogan. "You guys arranged your flights out yet? I'd recommend sooner rather than later, with Hochstetter's goons still out there looking for their gold, and eventually for their boss. You don't want to stick around too long, to be on the safe side."

"Speaking of that..." LeBeau held out his hand to Newkirk and waggled his fingers in a let's-have-it gesture. "Okay, _m'as-tu vu_, hand it over."

Newkirk looked completely blank. "Hand _what _over?"

"My wallet and my passport. Very funny. You should go back on the stage."

"_I_ haven't got 'em, Louis."

"You _must _have."

Hogan had one of those _the joke's over, fellas _looks on his face; Newkirk shook his head. "Honest, sir... I don't know what he's talkin' about." Then he looked at Face, and his eyes narrowed. "But I know who _would_..."

"_Me_?" Face challenged. "Why me?"

"Oh, come off; this isn't funny, Peck!"

Now it was Face's turn to make straight-faced eye contact with his superior. "Word of honor, Hannibal, I never laid a hand on LeBeau. Newkirk and I have been trying each other on, sure, but... I _didn't_..."

"It seems you have a problem," Hannibal told LeBeau. "If Lieutenant Peck says he didn't do it, he didn't do it."

"Oh _no_..." LeBeau pressed his hands to his forehead. "When we left the hotel this morning... there was a little girl... just _this _big... she bumped into me, and apologized... she was so cute..."

Newkirk laid a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, Louis… that's an old trick, _mon ami_... and the cuter the better. I'm sorry; I wish I'd seen it happen, I would've known."

"I know of that trick too… and I'm so careful in Paris… I can't believe I didn't _realize__.._."

"Now what, Colonel?" Carter asked Hogan.

"Looks like we find the French consulate in Buenos Aires."

"It could take weeks to replace a passport down here," Hannibal warned.

"Yeah, thanks, Smith; but we're looking for some _help_, not looking to get shot down."

"I can wait, I guess..." LeBeau sighed. "Not much choice."

"I'm not leavin' you here on your own, Louis," Newkirk said. "I'll stay."

"I will too," Carter nodded.

"Either we _all_ go home, or none of us go," Kinch agreed.

Hannibal had to admit, he was impressed. Not with their common sense, necessarily, but with the fact that he could see that they meant it... they really had no intention of leaving LeBeau in Argentina on his own, and they weren't just saying it to make him feel better before they caught a taxi to the airport. It was a respected military code, one he and his own men had lived by during their entire association... leave no man behind, no matter what. It was as simple as that, and he had to admit that he admired them for it. It might be impractical, but it was honorable. And at times like this, honor mattered more.

"There's another way," he spoke up.

"Like what?" Hogan knew he sounded suspicious. His brief association with Smith made him sound that way more and more often, it seemed.

"You all could fly back with us to Los Angeles. The consulate there would be a lot more on the ball than the one down here, plus it's a safer place to wait. We aren't much on passports when we travel… they kind of get in the way when you're fugitives."

"And we're not much on stewardesses or in-flight movies," Face felt he should add. "In fact, it can be like camping out at twenty thousand feet."

"The _good _news is that you don't have to fill out any of those annoying customs forms to declare things like a couple million bucks worth of hot gold. Saves a lot of time on arrival."

"Sounds like an offer we can't refuse."

"The more the merrier," Hannibal nodded. "We've got plenty of room, it's just the one ex-Nazi, and he looks to be the runt of the litter. Hope you don't mind flying 'no frills'."

"There's not much to even attach any frills _to_," Face clarified. "This thing is pretty well stripped down. And did we mention that it's also stolen?" The prospect of twenty-plus hours in the air with Newkirk didn't make him happy, but he too respected the no-man-left-behind credo, and it was the only thing to do under the circumstances. Even fugitive mercenaries had _some_ ethics.

"There's just one more thing," Hannibal added.

They were about to fly six thousand miles in a stolen plane held together with duct tape... how much worse could things likely get? "It's your show," Hogan shrugged. "We'll do whatever you say."

Hannibal looked around to ensure that Baracus was out of earshot. "Don't mention to B.A. that we're _all _going to be flying home, which includes _him_. He doesn't exactly like to hear that. And you might be able to imagine how he gets when he hears something he doesn't like."

"I take it you have a plan."

Hannibal nodded with confidence. "Of course."

Hannibal also had a syringe, as well as a plan. It could even be said that the syringe _was _the plan. But B.A. was no fool, and he was still keeping his distance from his CO... even being _around _planes made B.A. edgy, because being close to them so often ended with him being swept up in the air in them, without his knowledge or consent. He wasn't letting Hannibal get within twenty feet of him.

So it was a good thing Murdock _also _had a syringe. He was able to slip it into the muscle of the big man's upper arm just as he finished tying Hochstetter into one of the two jump seats mounted in the rear of the aircraft, and as an added bonus he was able to maneuver Baracus so that he fell into the _second _jump seat, instead of onto the floor. In true South American soccer-fan fashion, Murdock then thrust both his fists into the air and hollered "_Goal_!"

Hannibal consulted his watch. "We've got another couple hours of solid darkness... I'd rather pull out of here before dawn if we can. Hogan, that gives you and your men time to get back to the hotel and get your gear. While you're doing that, we'll be able to..."

"Hannibal..." Face broke in, his voice tense. "I think our departure time just got moved up..."

Smith followed Peck's line of sight and immediately saw what had caught his attention... in the moonlight, they could see three cars emerging from the treeline, following the old service road towards the cinderblock building. That would have been bad enough, but in the lead car a man lowered the front passenger window and leaned out holding an automatic rifle. "We leave _now_," he said, moving quickly toward the cargo door. "Everybody on board!" He didn't have to say it twice. The men in the those cars might not have known exactly who they were looking for, but a fleeing aircraft that had been parked right next to their missing armored car was a good bet for a culprit. They didn't care _who_ it was.

Murdock had no time for a pre-flight check, but that wasn't unusual; he fired the engines up and began to taxi with the cargo door still wide open. The three cars weren't that far behind, and Hannibal could hear a lot of bullets striking the hull. He knew only too well that if one of them hit either the fuel tank or any vital control lines, it could be a very short flight, and the chances of walking away from such a landing would be iffy at best. He opened the canvas bag that held B.A.'s stock of miniaturized explosive charges and was just about to chuck a couple out the door to hold off the pursuing vehicles when Carter suddenly appeared at his elbow.

"Colonel Smith… could _I_ do that, sir?" he asked with an eager smile. "Please?"

"You sure you know what you're doing, Sergeant?"

There was a sparkle in the softspoken Midwesterner's eyes that Hannibal hadn't remembered seeing before. "Oh, yes sir... I sure do."

Hannibal passed him one of the charges, not quite sure if it was the best idea. Carter, who up to now had given him the impression that he might have all he could handle just to get himself dressed in the morning, flipped the plastic safety cap off with his thumbnail and primed the chemical fuse expertly, not a single wasted motion, exactly as he had watched B.A. demonstrate in the hotel suite, then tossed it out the door with remarkable accuracy considering the speed the aircraft had already attained and the unevenness of the runway. The charge hit the tarmac just in front of the right front wheel of the first car, exploded, and sent the big black car careening off to the side, where it rolled over onto its roof.

"Nice," Smith congratulated him, trying not to sound as surprised as he actually was.

"I'm not even warmed up yet, boy... I mean, _sir_..." Carter readied a second unit and cocked his arm to throw it. "Okay, I'm goin' for the spare..."

"Attaboy, Andrew," Hogan said with pride. "I knew you still had it in you."

Funny how the length of the taxi always seemed inversely proportionate to the nearness of whoever was chasing them. Even _without_ the steady drilling of rifle fire... in seconds, a few well-aimed det-packs thrown by 'Sandy Koufax' Carter pretty much discouraged that... it seemed to take forever until the intense vibrations of the uneven tarmac ceased, the plane bounced upward, then down again, and then left the ground for good. There were just a couple more random pings of bullets on metal, like the last couple of kernels of corn to pop in a kettle, then the only sound was the roar of the engines, and Murdock's customary cowboy yell as the nose lifted sharply and the plane took to the air.

Hannibal was finally able to close the door. Just one more way their flights often differed from the standard variety... it had been a while, but he was pretty sure the doors were usually closed before commercial aircraft even left the gate, never mind the ground. He got to his feet and smoothed his windblown hair. "Welcome aboard A-Team Airlines," he announced to their guests. "Anything we can do to make your flight more enjoyable, please be sure and let us know."

"I know _I'm _all set," Carter grinned. "That was _lots _more fun than the Fourth of July."

LeBeau gave him a congratulatory slap on the back. "Good job, Andrew! That was _magnifique!_"

Hogan shook his head, the tail end of Murdock's whoop continuing to echo in his ears. "I know it's been a long time, but this is _not _the way I remember the Air Force."

oo 0 oo

The plane eventually leveled out, which was more than could be said for the situation in the back. B.A. was still out cold, but the major had begun to come around. It was fair to say that he was not happy to find himself tied to a jump seat in a stolen airplane on its way out of Argentinean airspace at a brisk clip, and to find not only Colonel Hogan but all four of his men in the aircraft _with _him was a living nightmare worse than anything he had ever dreamed up in his younger days in order to torture information out of suspects. He had thoroughly warmed up and was just beginning the main part of his ear-splitting tirade when Hannibal interrupted him by calmly leveling a pistol at his head.

"Now, if you don't behave yourself, Major Hostage… I mean, Hochstetter… we'll knock you out again... maybe the _hard _way next time," Hannibal warned. "It's up to you."

"Smith, you're insane," Hochstetter growled.

"No I'm not… our _pilot _is, but that's neither here nor there." He double-checked the knots that held the former Nazi officer's feet. "There. Snug as a bug… a big, ugly bug."

And they had discovered a stowaway. Cowering in the very back of the plane behind the crate full of gold bars, frightened by all the noise and chaos of the takeoff, was a small brown goat. The jellybeans in Carter's pocket were enough to draw her out of her hiding place after a few minutes, and she was soon sitting next to him on the floor of the plane, examining the rest of his pockets for more. "Isn't she cute?" he asked with all the pride of a new father, stroking her neck with affection.

"Bloody adorable," Newkirk said in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

"She must have wandered in when we set up the ramp to load the gold."

"That'll teach her."

"What should we call her?"

"How 'bout 'Idiot'? That's what I'd call anybody who got on this bleedin' plane who had a choice in the matter."

"In honor of our special guest Nazi, what about Odessa?" Face suggested.

"Hey, that's nice. I like that. Okay, we'll call her Odessa."

"Don't encourage him," Newkirk told Peck.

When Carter ran out of jelly beans, the newly-christened Odessa proved equally content to chew on the ancient straw-filled leather seat cushions. "Make sure she stays on that side of the plane," Kinch advised. "Wouldn't want her to eat too close to the major; that'd give even a _goat_ indigestion."

"I don't want to do this anymore," LeBeau said to no one in particular, slumped in his seat. "I'm an old man… I've earned some peace and quiet. Why am I not in my restaurant, working for my next _Michelin _star?"

"Because you're as daft as the rest of us," Newkirk told him.

"We'll drop in next time we're in Paris," Hannibal told him.

"You like French food, _Colonel_?"

He shrugged. "Fries and toast… but I'm always willing to try something new."

"He can speak for himself," Face said. "_I _happen to _love _French cuisine. There's nothing like a nice _saumon almondine _with a bold _Puilly Fuissé _'75."

LeBeau was always able to appreciate someone who appreciated French cooking, no matter how exhausted he was. "I'll make it for you myself."

"I will have _all_ of you _shot_!" Hochstetter howled.

Hannibal tore off a piece of the wide silver duct tape Murdock had used on the leading edge of the wing and fastened it securely over the man's mouth. "I warned you, didn't I? Next time it's gonna hurt."

"I've been wanting someone to do that for thirty-five years," Kinch chuckled. "Where's my camera?"

Murdock exited the cockpit, closed the door behind him, and sauntered into the passenger compartment, hands in his pockets. He stopped when he got to Hochstetter, snapped "_Volkswagen, Tannenbaum und Hindenburg!"_, then spun on his heel and dropped casually onto one of the bench seats, putting his feet up.

Face, with his lips to a canteen, choked halfway through the swallow of water. "Murdock, you're supposed to be flying the plane!"

"I am?" He held out his hands and grasped air instead of a yoke. "I don't think my arms are long enough for that, Face."

"_Hannibal_!"

"Take it easy, Face," Smith said. "Haven't you ever heard of autopilot?"

"Ain't no autopilot on _this_ thing," Murdock huffed. "We're lucky we got glass in the windows… the deluxe model, it ain't."

Now even Hannibal looked a little unnerved… even more so, when he tipped a glance out the window to see the foothills of the Andes rising not that far below their wings. "Captain, why don't you get back to the cockpit?"

"What for? Colonel Hogan's got everythin' under control up there."

"Hogan's flying the plane?"

Murdock shrugged. "He said he wanted to."

Face looked relieved. Sort of. "What kind of a pilot _is _Hogan?" he asked Kinch.

"Well, I don't know much about his landings… he's pretty good at bailing out, though."

Face wilted. "Terrific… next time, _I_ want to get knocked unconscious before I fly, okay? B.A. has all the luck."

Hannibal got to his feet. "I'll go up and ride shotgun a while. You fellas keep an eye on our guest; make sure he doesn't make a pest of himself."

Hogan did appear to have things well in hand; he sat as comfortably in the pilot's seat as Murdock normally did, and had a firm knowledgeable hold on the yoke. He glanced over his shoulder when he heard the cockpit door open, and appeared surprised but not unpleasantly so to see Hannibal Smith enter and take the co-pilot's chair. "How's it going back there?" he asked.

"Our mutual friend seems a little unhappy with his seat assignment."

Hogan smirked. "I'll bet. Have him bring it up with the flight attendant. If he can find one."

"How long since you've flown?"

"It's just like riding a bicycle." A sudden shudder of turbulence rattled the aircraft, but Hogan held steady on the controls. "Of course, I haven't ridden a bicycle in quite a while."

Smith pulled a package of cigars out of his pocket, and offered one to Hogan. "I always designate a smoking section on any flight I'm on."

Hogan accepted. "Excellent policy. One I think Newkirk would agree with."

Hannibal lit both cigars. "You've got quite a crew there."

"A bunch of eight-balls," Hogan nodded, taking the first puff. "But the best darn bunch of eight-balls I could ever ask for. Those guys have come through in the clinch more times than I can count, and they always came back for more." He gestured towards the back of the plane with his thumb. "And _you've_ got a good team… I mean, _I _wouldn't want 'em, but they seem to work for _you_."

Hannibal laughed. "Sometimes I'd like to trade them in on a different model myself. Then they do something that reminds me why I don't. Like saving my bacon."

"I can't decide who's more of a handful; Murdock or Baracus."

"You know something?" Smith puffed contentedly on his cigar. "Neither can I."


	14. Chapter 14

A couple of hours later, the low drone of the engines was the only sound in the back of the aircraft. B.A. was still blissfully unconscious, and with the exception of Kinch who was looking out the window at the dramatic expanse of mountain range below them, and Hochstetter who sat silently fuming in his jumpseat behind his duct tape muzzle, everyone in the passenger area was trying to catch some shut-eye.

Apparently bored with the taste of old straw, Odessa hopped up onto the seat next to Newkirk and began nibbling on the hem of the thin blanket he was dozing under. That didn't bother him, until she started tugging on it. "You're doin' it _again_…" he murmured, more asleep than awake. He tugged back.

LeBeau opened his eyes to look. When that didn't do much good, he pulled his glasses down so he could focus.

Another tug from Odessa, and a stronger one from Newkirk. "Blimey, you _can't_ have _all _the covers… have a heart…" Next, Odessa tried nuzzling his neck to have a taste of his shirt collar. "Not now, darlin'… go back to sleep…"

It was all LeBeau could do not to laugh. "Peter, dear, would you put the kettle on…?" he called softly in a higher-pitched tone than his normal voice.

"In a minute, luv…" But Newkirk wasn't planning to do it anytime soon; he had his blanket back, and the next thing LeBeau heard out of him was a soft snore. Odessa hopped down and wandered off to find something less challenging to chew on.

When she sampled the hemp rope binding Hochstetter's wrists behind his back and holding him firmly in his seat, his first instinct was to want to jerk away, but he quickly realized she might be able to do him a favor. _Nice_ _goat_… he thought to himself. _Pretty_ _goat… that's right; have a nice snack… eat __all__ the way through…_

Face turned to LeBeau. "You have a cruel streak in you, you know that?"

"_Oui_… I know," LeBeau nodded with a smile.

"Wouldn't think it to look at you… but it's there." He thought for a moment. "I wonder how _we'll_ be in thirty years… the four of _us_, I mean. Been together a long time already… a lot's gone on, and a lot of it hasn't been good."

"During the war, Peter once carried me on his back through the woods after I was shot during a sabotage mission. I know he'd do it again tomorrow if I needed him to, even if he knew he wouldn't be able to stand up straight for a week afterwards. And I'd do the same for him. Friends you meet in a foxhole are ones you tend to keep for a long time, no matter what."

"Unless of course you all end up getting stood against the wall and shot together… which has almost happened to us more than a couple of times."

"To us as well. But we always had good luck in the end." He glanced toward B.A. "Speaking of friends… what happens when he wakes up, anyway?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"On whether or not we've landed yet. Trust me… it's better if we have. We've nearly gotten ourselves killed in mid-air by our irate passenger a time or two. Personally, I'd rather face the Gestapo… in my underwear."

"I've never understood the fear of flying. I've always found it relaxing."

"Well, you haven't flown much with Murdock. It can set in pretty quickly."

"He's not such a good pilot?"

"Oh, he's a great pilot. I guess. But somehow, something usually ends up going wrong, and…"

Face broke off when the plane suddenly lost a considerable amount of altitude, jostling everyone but B.A. roughly awake and making them grab onto whatever was handy. "Like _this_, you mean?" the Frenchman asked, his knuckles white on the edge of the bench seat.

"Yeah… like this…" Face nodded nervously. "I think your good luck may have just run out."

Hannibal was out of his seat and hurrying towards the cockpit when the plane dropped again, and he barely managed to remain on his feet. "Everybody hang on!" he ordered.

"To _what_?" Carter wanted to know.

The sight of _two _pilots in the cockpit should have made Hannibal feel better. It didn't, because they both looked seriously concerned. "High level turbulence," Murdock reported succinctly without being asked, as he wrestled with the yoke that seemed to have a mind of its own. "Nothin' we can do about it, Hannibal… happens a lot over high mountain ranges."

Hannibal looked out the window. "_That's_ a _very _high mountain range, Captain…"

Murdock gave a tense nod. "Uh… yup…"

"And it's…" He took another look. "…not that far below us…"

"Nope…"

"It's not gonna get any closer, is it?" Yet another sudden drop in altitude; Hannibal hung on for dear life to the back of Murdock's seat.

"It… um… _might_…" the pilot admitted.

"Can we get above it, Captain?" Hogan asked from the co-pilot's chair.

"You mean the turbulence, or that peak?"

The last time Hogan had had that same sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach had been the night his B-17 had been shot down over Germany. "Oh, no…" That last drop had brought them too far down for comfort; that peak Murdock was talking about was visible _without _looking _down_. And there were plenty more on either side of it.

"Boy, I bet the skiin' there is somethin' else," Murdock mused.

"If we don't gain some altitude fast, we're gonna be finding out."

"What can we do?" Hannibal asked.

Murdock clutched the yoke still tighter and pressed his lips together. And was that _sweat _on his upper lip? "I think on the _Titanic _they sang 'Nearer My God to Thee'. But if you'd rather do show tunes, I'm easy."

Hannibal cast his eyes skyward. There didn't seem to be anything up there that could help him, though. "What _else _can we do?"

"Either find us some more air, or lighten the plane." Yet another stomach-churning drop of the aircraft. "The sun'll come out tomorrow… bet your bottom dollar that tomorrooowwwwww…" He fought with the controls for another few seconds. "See what you can do back there; Colonel Hogan and I'll keep tryin' to get the nose up."

Hannibal hustled back into the passenger area. "Murdock says we have to lighten the plane."

Carter grabbed Odessa up into his arms, and he clutched her with fierce protectiveness. "_No_… no way… don't even _think _it!"

"I don't think a thirty-pound goat is going to make much difference one way or the other, Andrew," Kinch said.

"Well, what _can_ we throw out?"

Hochstetter, for the first time, had gone meekly silent. If there was a _better_ time for those men to have their attention completely off him, he couldn't think when it might possibly be. His bonds were almost loose enough to slip out of now, thanks to that stupid animal; it was only a matter of time. What came after that, he wasn't sure… but they had been wrong to underestimate him. No one made a fool of Wolfgang Hochstetter.

Hannibal's eyes went to the crate filled with gold bars. Simultaneously, Face went deathly pale. "No… _no_… Hannibal, that's way over _two million dollars_ in pure _gold _sitting right _there_, close enough to…" He extended his trembling fingers in the direction of the crate. "Do you know what a troy ounce is going for in this economy?"

"Face, do you see anything _else _in this plane that's anywhere _near _as heavy as that gold? Do you have any idea what a couple million dollars worth of gold _weighs_?"

"Two point two pounds per bar, and we've got about four hundred and fifty bars, give or take a few…"

"That's right; it's gotta be almost a thousand pounds! And we haven't got it to spare!"

"Couldn't we cut the landing gear off or something? Murdock doesn't need wheels to land; half the time he drops it so hard we can't tell if we've got 'em anyway. Or maybe we could…"

"We jettison the gold, Lieutenant! _Now!_"

Face made a soft, involuntary, strangling noise in the back of his throat. The rest of the men, with the continued exception of B.A. who had no idea how terrifying flying had just become for the _rest_ of the passengers, converged on the big crate.

Hannibal motioned for everyone to stand back and wrestled the heavy door open. The bone-chilling cold of the Andes rushed in, freezing the nervous sweat running down his back on contact. Those peaks looked even less inviting when there was nothing between them and him except a couple hundred feet of midair.

No time, and no way, to figure out how to move the whole crate at once… the hydraulic lift was back in the armored car. Kinch started pulling gold bars out and passed them to Carter, who passed them to Newkirk, who passed them to LeBeau, who passed them to Hannibal, who tossed them out the door as quickly as he could go. Face, looking faint, leaned heavily on the crate and ran his hands over the ones he could reach, moments before Kinch grabbed them and they were gone for good.

"You can't take it with you, Lieutenant!" Hannibal called over to him, seeming to take a kind of perverse joy in his work at the open door.

"Nobody's ever actually proven that…" Face insisted feebly. He stroked another bar fondly, like a pet, only to have it snatched away by Kinch a moment later. "Bye, buddy…" he sighed.

Back in the cockpit, nothing had changed. Well, that wasn't quite true… those peaks were closer now than they had been two minutes ago. Murdock had sung "Tomorrow" twice, and Hogan was just hoping 'tomorrow' would actually figure in their futures. It didn't seem likely. The plane refused to gain altitude, and if the others were actually finding anything to throw out back there, it wasn't much and it wasn't fast enough.

"You ever try threadin' a needle with your eyes closed, Colonel?" Murdock asked.

"Can't say that I have, Captain."

"Well, that's what we're gonna have to do right now… slide it between those two peaks, those two big ones right there, and hope for the best."

"When do we close our eyes?"

"Shoot, mine've been closed for five minutes; what're _you_ waitin' on?" Hogan turned to look; it was a reflex and he couldn't help it. It was to find Murdock looking back at him with a grin, and giving him a wink.

If he lived through this, Hogan promised himself, he would never, never again get on a plane that wasn't a well-maintained modern aircraft and a regular commercial flight that was guaranteed to fly only through one hundred percent safe airspace… no Andes, no tape on the wings, no mental patients at the controls… no, no, _no_…

Murdock suddenly noticed the altimeter starting to creep upwards. "Holy Himalayas, they're doin' it… we're gainin' some altitude…" Then he frowned. "Good, but not enough… still gonna have to do a little dancin' to make it out the other side…" He set his cap more firmly on his head, and called over his shoulder, "Hang _on_, back there!"

"We keep getting told to hang on, but nobody ever says to _what,_" Carter complained to Newkirk as they passed brick after brick, bucket-brigade style, towards the doorway. "Boy, that's some safety briefing. That'd_ never_ pass muster with the Muncie Fire Department. They're all _over _us at the Fourth of July fireworks shows; they wouldn't let a single..."

"Oh, you heard _that, _did you?" Newkirk could barely feel his own hands anymore in the biting cold from the open door; he could only be sure he had a gold bar in them when he was actually looking. "The first thing I'm gonna do when we get down is _glue _that bloody thing into your ear!"

"There's no need to get physical… hey, why do you think they call it 'goldbricking' when you're being lazy? This is _hard work_."

"Hold it…" Hannibal said. "Was that _Murdock_ who just said 'hang on'?"

LeBeau nodded. "So?"

"Oh, God." Hannibal pointed toward the rear of the plane. "Everybody secure yourselves, _right now!_" Murdock, who routinely performed aerobatics that would shake your teeth loose, took chances that would turn your hair white, descended into rainforest canopies while calmly asking that tray tables be returned to the upright position, fit big airplanes underneath little bridges at a hundred eighty miles an hour, who never 'crashed' but sometimes 'performed sudden involuntary terrestrial relocations', who _never_ gave anybody any warning that any of that was about to happen… Howlin' Mad Murdock had just said 'hang on'. Hannibal's entire life flashed before his eyes. Well, he'd had some good times… too bad they were probably over.

The plane, which had been holding relatively close to horizontal, suddenly began to bank to the left. A steep bank. A _really _steep bank. And it just kept getting steeper, and steeper…

"_Mon dieu…_" LeBeau, second closest to the open door, realized what was happening and dove for a handhold. The plane wasn't just _turning_… it was turning _over._

Hannibal quickly checked B.A.'s seatbelt and assured himself that the sergeant was secure. The crate, only about a third of the way filled with gold now, started to slide sideways along the no-longer-level floor. "Murdock, I hope you know what you're doing…"

Carter hoisted Odessa into the hammock of cargo netting that was secured to the bulkhead. "Don't worry, girl," he told her.

"Right, don't bother; _I'm_ worried enough for _all _of us!" Newkirk assured him. He had both arms locked around the railing behind the seat and he hoped it would be enough. How long was the plane going to be in this position, and could he hang on that long? He was a _tailor_, not an acrobat, and finally ready now to admit that he wasn't as young as he used to be, if anyone cared to ask him. But he fervently hoped he'd have the chance to get at least a _little_ bit older.

Hannibal was on his way to take hold of something solid himself, when Hochstetter suddenly did his best to let out a yell behind the piece of tape over his mouth. His first thought was to ignore him, but something in his voice made him look. He had started to become untied. That would have been a problem anyway... right now, it was a disaster. It was the only thing holding him to his seat.

Hannibal lunged for the Nazi officer's position. The ropes were very loose, badly frayed in a few places, but still there. A few seconds was all he needed to secure them, and this time Hochstetter did nothing to slow him down or protest... nobody in his position would have wanted to become unattached at the moment. The plane hadn't stopped banking yet. How much more could it turn? Murdock wasn't aiming to do a barrel roll with this thing, was he?

Hannibal grabbed for a handhold... and missed. It was a bad time to miss. He didn't have a chance to try again; gravity intervened and he lost his footing and fell, then started sliding slowly across the floor of the tipped plane toward the open door.

"Colonel!"

Kinchloe was close, holding out one hand while hanging tight to the bulkhead with the other. It wasn't that far... except it _felt _like it. Hannibal extended his arm as far forward as he could, still sliding backward bit by bit. It was now or never; Kinch couldn't get any closer, not without letting go himself.

The crate with the remaining gold bars was sliding backward too; Face couldn't seem to decide whether or not to watch.

One more stretch, one more desperate grab... that time Kinch caught Hannibal's hand and pulled him back with every ounce of strength he had in him, and at last Hannibal found a place to hang on.

The crate with the last of the gold inside slid even closer to the edge. Before Face could manage to say anything, it teetered on the threshold and then fell. "I _hate _this mission!" Face wailed.

As he clutched the crosspiece of one of the bench seats, LeBeau watched through the open door as the plane passed between the two peaks. There were no words in _either_ language he knew well to describe the sight... it looked as if the rocky terrain passed by within an arm's length. The engines sounded as if they were at the limit of their endurance. Were they going to miss hitting whatever they were trying to miss hitting, only to find themselves plummeting down to the ground with dual engine failure? What had he been saying just a few minutes before to Peck, about how much he had always enjoyed flying? He closed his eyes and hung on, trying to block out the sight of the peaks, the sound of the wind, the freezing cold, _everything_.

"_Je déteste voler_…"


	15. Chapter 15

Hogan had had no idea the battered C-47 would put up with that kind of abuse. With one wing low and the other high, Murdock managed to slide it through the narrow pass and then start to level it out on the other side. In front of them now, it was clear. The highest peaks were behind them; now they were heading into foothills.

"Whoo-_wee_, that's better'n Disneyland!" Murdock whooped, bouncing excitedly in his seat. "Wanna do it again? I'll let you drive this time."

Hogan hoped, but wasn't exactly sure, that he was kidding. He unbuckled his harness. "I think I'd better go see what's going on in the back." If he could make it that far. He was as close to being airsick as he'd ever come in his entire life.

"If they're huffy, offer 'em a free bag of peanuts but that's it," Murdock instructed. "A few li'l bumps and you'd be surprised to find out what a bunch of babies you got in economy class."

"Right…" Hogan nodded. "I'll remember that."

'Huffy' wasn't quite the word Hogan might have used to describe the way the men in the frigid, wind-swept passenger compartment looked. 'Shell-shocked' was more like it… everyone was gasping, disheveled, and still clinging onto something solid, unconvinced that the danger was over yet. Nobody really had to say a word; Hogan had the whole story as soon as he saw the open door. The boys had had quite a ride. "Everybody okay?" he asked.

"_Cértainement_…" LeBeau nodded numbly, white-faced and attempting to strike a casual pose where he lay on the floor with his arms still locked around the crosspiece of the bench seat. "Why do you ask…?"

"Colonel…" Kinch began, "just one question… was that _you_, or was that Murdock?"

"You have to ask?" He wasn't sure what possessed him… he supposed he just wanted to see the looks on their faces. "It was me."

"Have you gone 'round the bend?" Newkirk looked like he wanted to say something else but wasn't quite sure what it should be… and maybe unsure whether or not it was acceptable to use those words to an officer, even a retired one.

"Take it easy, Newkirk. Of _course_ it was Murdock."

"Well all _right _then… that _figures_."

"_I_ had my eyes closed," he grinned. "Hey, you ditched the gold, huh? How'd you manage to move it all out so fast?"

"It _fell _out!" Newkirk informed him. "Like _we _almost did! I'm glad you think it's so bloody funny! The next time you and Captain Crackers want to ditch some weight in a hurry, you try _that_ again and you'll lose a half-dozen passengers nice as you please!"

"Newkirk, you're scaring Odessa," Carter said. "Keep your voice down, okay?"

"_I'm_ scarin' her? I suppose everythin' that just happened to her was a ride at the fun fair!"

Well, that wasn't going to work… Carter dialed down his hearing aid until Newkirk's shouting was down to a muffled murmur, put his hands gently over the goat's floppy ears and gave her a reassuring nod. "He doesn't mean it, girl. Sometimes he yells. It's not at you."

B.A. gave a low groan and turned his head a little. "I'll have what _he's_ havin'," Newkirk snapped before stalking off towards the rear of the plane to find a place to cool off by himself for while.

Hogan and Hannibal closed and refastened the cargo door. 'Cooling off' in _that_ sense wasn't going to be a problem. But frostbite might be, in a few minutes. "Temper _temper_…" Hannibal couldn't resist.

"Yeah, well, that's Newkirk. He doesn't scare easy, but when he _does_, that's what it sounds like. He'll straighten up."

"And actually he's _right_." Hannibal gestured to the door. "You would have lost about two hundred pounds of lieutenant colonel for sure if it hadn't been for Sergeant Kinchloe. It was that close."

"My pleasure, Colonel," Kinch nodded.

"If you ask me, sir, you should have let that _Boche _take his chances," LeBeau said with a glare at the major. "That's what he gets for untying himself."

"I think we'd _all_ rather that Major Hochstetter made it back in one piece to face the music," Hannibal said. "That would have been too quick and too easy for the likes of him. I wasn't really trying to do him a favor."

"And you just _met _him," Hogan added. "When you _really _get to know him, he makes an even _stronger _impression."

From the cockpit came Murdock's boisterous and not-half-bad baritone, swinging into a familiar old war ditty.

_Comin' in on a wing and a prayer,_

_Comin' in on a wing and a prayer,_

_Though there's one motor gone, we can still carry on,_

_We're comin' in on a wing and a prayer… _

Well, Hogan mused… that was just about the size of it.

oo 0 oo

_WELCOME TO PALM SPRINGS_. The sign said it all.

It had been a cramped ride in the black van, which had really been designed for only half as many passengers, but it had been such an improvement over the flight through the Andes that nobody had so much as muttered a syllable of complaint. Still, it was nice to get out of that thing, get their feet back on solid pavement and stretch for the first time in hours.

The parking lot of the Desert Palm Resort was full of luxury cars. Mercedes, BMW, even Rolls Royce badges lined up in neat rows. "Looks like we're the only ones who buy American around here," Murdock remarked.

"Head for the service parking lot, B.A.," Hannibal instructed. "You remember what happened the last time a valet offered to park your van for you." That was one valet who'd gone right to his boss to request hazard pay. B.A.'s 'ride' was completely off-limits to overly helpful attendants of all types. He tended to make that clear pretty fast whenever someone was unwise enough to suggest that he allow them to take it somewhere. Best not to start that kind of a 'discussion' here, before they'd done what they'd come here to do.

Hannibal had that morning's edition of the _Los Angeles Times_ under his arm. The headline _Nazi Officer Captured _showed above the fold, along with the old ID photograph of Hochstetter from his Berlin days. Leaving him outside on a loading dock at LAX had been a compromise; the four fugitives hadn't been able to stand up and take the credit, and the five veterans had been unwilling to take all the credit themselves. So, in effect, they'd chosen to leave the baby on the doorstep and ring the bell.

In any case, the discovery of a bound and gagged man inside a fertilizer crate who had no identification, no papers, and no decorum to speak of had immediately gotten the attention of the local authorities. After a well-placed anonymous phone call from Hannibal, the feds had swooped in: they knew exactly who their screaming, threatening, totally out of control houseguest was and what needed to be done with him. How he had gotten there in the first place was for later on. Nobody was about to look this gift horse in the mouth.

Hannibal had something else with him: the so-called "rebate" on Herr Johann Schmidt's payment for the Argentina job. Face hadn't been able to take his eyes off it all morning, and had made a couple of not-so-subtle suggestions that Hannibal might consider changing his mind. It was down to the wire now and he knew he had to try just one more time. "Hannibal, have you considered the possibility that you might actually _offend _Mr. Schmidt by returning the balance of his payment?"

"No," Hannibal smiled with confidence. "Give it up, Face. We lost the gold over the Andes, which isn't exactly ideal but at least it won't be funding cushy lifestyles for ex-Nazis anymore, and Mr. Schmidt gets his money back over and above our travel expenses… that's fuel for the C-47, the hotel, five unused return fares from South America to the States…"

"Wait a minute… you mean you're using _that _money to pay for Hogan and his…?"

"Seems only fair, since they did their part in the operation."

"Right…" Face sounded anything but convinced. "'Fair' is always in the eye of the beholder."

"We're supposed to meet him by the pool. He's expecting us."

"With a carnation in his buttonhole, no doubt, so we'll be able to recognize him."

"Magnanimous gestures really bother you, don't they Face? You need to relax, think about something other than money all the time."

"If I _had_ some, I wouldn't _have _to think about it."

"Think of it this way... it's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."

"Well, I've still got my watch." Face patted his wrist with confidence, feeling the smooth glass crystal right where it should be.

"Well, I never…" Newkirk mused. "Must be losin' me touch." He gave Andrew a clap on the back. "What's the matter, Andrew? You look a little down in the mouth."

"I miss Odessa," he admitted. "You think she'll be happy at that farm we dropped her off at?"

"I _know _she will. I saw the glint in that young ram's eye when we popped her over the fence. Be real popular with the locals, I'm sure."

"Pets are a big responsibility," Murdock nodded knowledgeably. "I know Billy's gonna be real upset with me when I get home. He just hates bein' left alone."

"Ain't no dog," B.A. felt obliged to mutter, as always. Sometimes the rest of the Team thought he did it just to convince _himself _that Billy was about as real as the Easter Bunny, to everyone except Murdock.

The pool area was crowded with people of all shapes and sizes, some in the water, many on lounge chairs on the deck. "How are you supposed to know this Herr Schmidt?" Hogan asked.

Hannibal sidled up to the bar and motioned for the attendant. "Excuse me, but could you please tell us where we can find a Mr. Johann Schmidt? We're supposed to meet him here."

The young man craned his neck and surveyed the pool enclosure. "That's Mr. Schmidt right over there, on that lounge chair… the one in the orange shirt with the palm trees on it."

"Thanks, pal." Hannibal tapped the envelope with the remainder of the cash in it against his palm. "Let me go return this before Face finds a way to pick _my _pocket."

Mr. Schmidt was certainly having a good time that afternoon. He had a glass of champagne in one hand and a copy of the _Los Angeles Times _in the other, and he alternated between sips of the drink and close examination of the front-page story, which he was chuckling over in a delighted, Christmas-morning kind of a way. Not a very imposing fellow, Hannibal thought as he came around front to introduce himself… probably around eighty, slight and nearly bald. "Herr Schmidt?"

No recognition at first, then the older man's face lit up. "Are you Hannibal Smith?"

"Yes, sir. Pleased to meet you at last."

"Oh, you've done a _marvelous _job, Smith. Really, I can't tell you when I've had such a good time just reading a newspaper." He held it up and pointed to a paragraph. "You left him closed up in a box that said _fertilizer_?"

Hannibal shrugged. "Truth in labeling,"

"_Fabelhoft!_" Schmidt crowed, slapping his thigh."I couldn't be more pleased."

"Actually maybe you could." He held out the envelope with the remainder of the cash inside. "We're having a special this week. We're only charging you for our travel expenses… getting that roach out of the walls is worth something to us. Here's what was left over."

The older man's left eyebrow elevated in surprise. "An _honest_ mercenary?"

"There are a few of us."

"I don't know what to say."

"Don't say _anything_. That's all we ever ask."

Schmidt nodded. "I understand"

"We appreciate your discretion."

"Will you join me for lunch?"

"No thanks. We need to get back to L.A."

"Oh, so you're here with the rest of your team? May I give them my thanks as well?"

A few yards away, the others were clustered around two tables underneath sun umbrellas, giving a warm welcome to the pretty waitress who had just arrived with a round of drinks... milk, naturally, for B.A.; the others had opted for something a bit more medicinal. "I could get used to this," Kinch said. "January in Detroit is a little on the chilly side."

"I don't yet miss the bite of the wind off the Thames," Newkirk had to admit. His eyes followed the young waitress' short skirt as she moved off to the next table. "And there are _other _advantages to the climate here…"

LeBeau gave him a friendly poke in the ribs. "And they say that _Frenchmen_ are girl-crazy. You never quit, do you?"

"Maybe one day." He took a sip of whisky and smiled after the retreating hemline. "But there'll have to be at least a half-dozen nails in the lid of the box first."

"It was an experience," Face said. "I can say that honestly. There's plenty of _other _things I could say too, but I'd better quit when I'm ahead. Somehow we ended up not killing each other; I think that's worthy of a toast." He raised his glass. "To the A-Team and Hogan's Heroes… may they never meet again."

"I think we worked _great _together," Carter said enthusiastically.

"Maybe if you're lucky they'll give you a call next time," Kinch said. "Might be a little difficult to explain to Mary Jane, though."

"Don't call _me_," Hogan said. "I'd like to live to enjoy my retirement."

But it _had_ been fun. Hogan almost wanted to check himself into the room next door to Murdock for even _thinking _of using that word in this context, but it was true. He'd been behind a desk for a long time before his retirement from the Army, and the chance to actually feel his blood pumping again, that surge of adrenalin when something went wrong, feel his mind clicking away to come up with some idea, _something_ to do next that would help pull the whole operation out of the fire, and most of all the immense satisfaction when everything finally went _right_… not to mention the chance to pilot an aircraft again, even that hair-raising headlong careen through the Andes in that old junker… that had felt really, _really_ good. Beat the heck out of shuffleboard.

"What's keepin' Hannibal?" B.A. asked. "How long does it take to give back money?"

"It can be gone in a heartbeat," Face reminisced wistfully. "Look at how fast millions of dollars disappeared." He sipped his champagne. "But the trip definitely had its moments. Newkirk, the look on your face when you saw me going through your wallet back in Buenos Aires… I'm going to carry that with me for the rest of my life. If I'm ever smiling when there's no girls around, that'll be what I'm thinking about."

"Is that right?"

"Are you sure you guys aren't related?" Carter asked.

"_Shut up_," Newkirk and Face chorused.

"What did I tell you earlier?" LeBeau asked the group. "_Ils se voient dans la glace_."

Newkirk began twirling something on his right index finger… something shiny, metallic, and circular… and Murdock broke into a wide grin. "Uh oh, Faceguy… you missin' anything, fella?"

"_Besides_ several million dollars in gold bullion, you mean?" He shook his head. "Believe me, my wallet is where _I _can't even get at it."

"I think Newkirk snagged your watch again, buddy."

"No, uh _uh_, not a chance… my watch is right _here._" Face patted his wrist again. Yes. There was the watch crystal under his fingers, right where it ought to be. B.A. was right, though; Hannibal was sure taking his time with Schmidt… he glanced down at it.

Mickey Mouse, loose arms flailing wildly, gave him an empty-eyed grin on his left wrist. Face stared back at it in disbelief. "_No_!"

"What's that you were sayin' about fond memories, Peck?" Newkirk asked. "_This_ is one of _mine_."

Realizing his own wrist was bare, Murdock couldn't help laughing. "It's about quarter past three, Face… just go like _this._" He tipped his left palm towards the floor.

Hannibal turned to look when he heard the burst of laughter. Unbelievable. Less than a week ago those guys had been at each other's throats; there they were now sitting together having a drink. Face wasn't laughing, though, so it looked like the bell had just rung on yet another round of the international Peck vs. Newkirk grudge match, and his lieutenant was already on the ropes.

Schmidt, who had also turned to look towards the sound when Hannibal had, wasn't laughing either. He was looking, very intently, at the group of men. "No…"

"Something wrong, Mr. Schmidt?"

"It _can't_ be…" Schmidt reached into the pocket of his brightly-colored shirt and pulled out a small round clear glass lens, which he fit over his left eye. They called them 'monocles', Hannibal recalled… he hadn't seen one since that low-budget World War One flick he'd had a bit part in the previous summer. "Not _him_… not _here_… "

Hogan happened to glance up, and his eyes met those of the man calling himself Johann Schmidt. Yes, it was _definitely _time for the looney bin, because he was seeing things now. He was seeing…

"_Colonel Klink_?"

LeBeau shuddered. "Don't even say that in jest, _mon Colonel…_"

"It's _him… _he's right over _there_!"

They all turned to look. "_That's _Johann Schmidt?" Kinch asked incredulously.

Klink's expression gave the impression that he was trapped in the middle of the second reel of a horror movie. "You have that effect on a lot of people, don't you, Colonel Hogan?" Face asked. "They take one look at you and start screaming 'oh no'. Doesn't that ever get to you?"

Hogan hardly heard a word Peck was saying; he crossed the pool deck toward Hannibal and Klink. "_Kommandant_!" he smiled playfully, fully aware that he wasn't a pleasant sight and prepared to make the most of it. He hadn't seen Klink since Liberation Day in the spring of 1945, which had not been a happy day for the former camp commander. They had hardly parted friends. "_You're_ Johann Schmidt?"

"_You're_ the _A-Team_?"

He laughed at the very thought. "No, just doing a little moonlighting. You remember the boys, right?"

Klink swallowed hard at the sight of his other four former prisoners, all giving him cheery waves and big smiles. This was getting worse every minute. "Oh, _no_… I don't know how you do it, Hogan… the best day of my life… and _you _show up to ruin it. Somehow, you _knew…_"

"C'mon, Colonel, that's not very fair… how was _I_ supposed to know you're going around calling yourself Johann Schmidt these days?"

"I don't go _around _doing that! I hired a team of criminals to carry out a kidnapping who require a six-figure advance payment in cash and no questions asked; you think I would use my real name for something like that? Do you think I'm some kind of a fool?"

"Only the _best_ kind. Hey, nice shirt… that's a new look for you, isn't it?"

"Hannibal!" Now it was B.A.'s voice that was turning heads all over the pool area; he was pointing toward the parking lot and it couldn't be anything good. "I told you when we passed by that state trooper just outside town! MP's!"

"Sorry to have to run," Hannibal said to Klink, "but something's come up. Nice meeting you… whatever your name is." He sprinted in the direction of the rest of his team, who were all on their feet and ready to run for the van.

"Why _me_…?" Klink lamented, sinking back onto his lounge chair.

"Colonel Hogan!"

Hogan turned when he heard Hannibal call his name. He was surprised to see Smith snapping him a salute. He smiled, and returned it.

The four A-Team members disappeared into the crowd in the direction of the parking lot, and the five Heroes relocated to the table right next to Klink's lounge chair with their drinks. "So tell us, _Kommandant_," LeBeau began, "what have you been doing since May 1945?"

"Right; how've you been keepin', sir?" Newkirk inquired.

"And don't skip ahead," Kinch added. "We've got all day."

"Yeah," Carter nodded. "We want to hear _everything_. And then we'll all tell you what _we've _been doing. It'll be fun."

"This is cruel and unusual torture…" Klink clenched his shaking hand into a fist and pressed his knuckle firmly against his lip. "Isn't there anything in the Geneva Convention that could protect _me _once in a while…?"

Three men in khaki uniforms were the next wave to disrupt the swarm of sunbathers; they raced through the pool enclosure with their hands on the automatic weapons in their belts, looking around for their quarry. The one in the lead held out a color photograph to Hogan, a four-way composite… a clear and easily recognizable close-up of a Team member occupied each quadrant. "Have you seen these men?" the soldier demanded. "Do you know where they are?"

Hogan shook his head. "I see nothing… I know nothing…"

"_No-__thing__!_" Kinch, Carter, Newkirk and LeBeau chorused.

"I wish I'd never gotten out of bed this morning…" Klink groaned.

There was a squeal of tires from the nearby service parking area; B.A. drove the black van up over the curb and onto the lawn, and Hannibal leaned out the passenger-side window, stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. "Hey, fellas! We're over here!"

The three soldiers headed full tilt back to their car, while B.A. hit reverse and left wide scar marks in the lush lawn on his way back to the pavement. Less than a minute later the chase was on; the black van careened out onto the highway, skidding sideways, with the drab green sedan of the MPs close behind. That was, of course, the way Hannibal preferred it. Start close, then _really _frustrate them by leaving them so far behind they'd be lucky to find their way home. That was the whole trick.

oo 0 oo

"Did you _have _to do that, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

"Of course." Hannibal checked the rear-view mirror. The MPs were falling behind again. This bunch must have flunked the hot-pursuit part of their training; it was all the Team could do to keep them in sight. But it was nowhere near time to put on a burst of speed and leave them holding their hats yet; they still had a half a tank of gas.

"You think we'll ever hear from Hogan again, Colonel?" Murdock mused.

"It's possible."

"I _know_ we'll be hearing from Newkirk," Face smiled. "While you guys were nailing Hochstetter into the box at LAX, I was making a phone call… I ordered two dozen long-stemmed red roses to be delivered to a Miss Frances Newkirk of Blackheath, East London… along with a card asking her to remember me to her father. After which, I expect her dear old daddy to melt a transatlantic phone cable with the most appalling language you ever heard. I'm gonna save it on my answering machine."

Hannibal chuckled. "Face, you're too much."

"Yeah. That's what they tell me."

"And you know what, Face?" Murdock picked up. "I bet you Newkirk's such a good sport that he'll mail your watch back to you anyway."

Peck's face fell. In all the chaos, he'd forgotten: Newkirk _did_ still have his watch. "Oh, _no_..."

"I think Murdock's right," Hannibal nodded. "He'll send it back to you. Of course, it'll probably be in more than one envelope."

"I can't take this anymore, Hannibal," B.A. snapped. "Those fools in back of us are gettin' on my nerves! When can we get outta here?"

Hannibal motioned to him to take off, which B.A. was more than happy to do. The four of them were pulled back in their seats by the sudden acceleration when his gas-pedal foot hit the floor. The MPs were left far behind in a swirling cloud of sand and burning rubber.

"Another one bites the _dust_," Murdock said with satisfaction. "And brother, they just ate a _mouthful_."

Hannibal grinned around his cigar. "I love it when a plan comes together."

THE END

A/N: Thanks to all for reading, and a special thanks to those who commented! This story was inspired by my noticing that Ivan Dixon, who played Sergeant Kinchloe on _Hogan's Heroes_, had also directed an episode of _The A-Team. _I love both of those shows, and couldn't help starting to dream up crossover possibilities. I'm glad the "return of Colonel Klink" was guessable, as I intended it to be.

I would like to thank my dad, a WWII veteran and lifelong aircraft enthusiast, for his assistance and advice in my description of the flight of the C-47. Any remaining errors are completely my own.


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